3 Top Tips for Educators Managing Chromebooks

If you are handling Chromebooks, what are some of the major difficulties? You could have observed that it’s a major obstacle to only retain track of who has what gadget. Perhaps taking care of system repairs  is more complicated than you predicted. Or your top challenge could be figuring out exactly where each and every unit your school ordered is truly positioned.

I recently sat down with Dean Bates from VIZOR to communicate about running Chromebooks. You could possibly have listened to the conversation if you are a frequent listener of my Simple EdTech Podcast. This bonus episode was titled “Must-Consider Strategies for 1-to-A single Chromebook Administration.” 1 of the issues I appreciated so a great deal about our discussion was the actionable data Dean supplied to listeners.

Tips for Running Chromebooks

These days on the weblog, I’m excited to narrow down the checklist of exceptional info Dean shared to 3 top tips for educators taking care of Chromebooks. I certainly stimulate you to listen to the episode, much too. It’s a terrific companion to this web site put up, and you can discover it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Or you can research for my Quick EdTech Podcast on your most loved podcast participant. One more solution is to press enjoy below. The episode will preserve participating in as extended as the web browser is open – even if you switch taps to check your e mail.

You might bear in mind some of the ideas Dean shared about what to do if you are in a just one-to-1 Chromebook college or district. I appreciated Dean’s perception and needed to share 3 major ideas for educators controlling Chromebooks this 12 months. So let’s bounce into the record alongside one another!

Comprehend the Finish Everyday living Cycle of Your Chromebooks

“Life cycle” is not just a phrase for a biology classroom. When it will come to handling Chromebooks, comprehension the life cycle is vital. All of your stakeholders, such as users of your technologies committee leading the just one-to-a person unit initiative, should sit down and map out the complete lifecycle of their Chromebook gadgets. Owning distinct views, these kinds of as engineering coordinators, media experts, ideas, and lecturers, will make this conversation additional impactful.

You are going to want to establish not only tasks but who will be the point person liable for these jobs for each stage of the Chromebook lifecycle. For case in point, who will be there from the moment you are ready to press the buy button all the way right up until you’re prepared to exchange, donate, or recycle applied devices.

In this article are a number of concerns the team at VIZOR advise you deal with as a committee:

• How will equipment be acquired – outright, leased, relatives-funded, or beneath other funding systems?
• How and who will allocate units to educational facilities and then students?
• Will instructors or librarians be component of the physical deployment of the gadget?
• How will educational institutions handle repairs ? And what will transpire if a machine is misplaced or stolen?
• How will you determine if units are at their close-of-daily life? And what will come about to the units at their conclusion-of-lifestyle?

Applications like VIZOR can reduce workload by automating these daily life cycle processes and jobs. They have defined and automated the extremely greatest practices for controlling Chromebooks with more than a 10 years of expertise functioning with university districts.

Schedule a demo to master far more about how VIZOR can enable with controlling Chromebooks this yr.

Retain a Central Machine Stock

What form of data are you accumulating, examining, and examining about the university 12 months? Several colleges and districts have information on their deployed products and a lot more detailed a person-to-one programs. But the difficulty is usually that this data is unfold out in lots of spots (ex., Google Admin console, Student Information Techniques, Spreadsheets, and so forth.). Handling all of this data can be challenging, and it’s also difficult to make sure you have the most exact, authentic-time details readily available.

Suggestion selection two shared by Dean at VIZOR is that districts need to maintain a central product stock. They can consider of it as a “single source of truth” for all information relating to their devices.

Listed here are a couple of pieces of information and facts your system inventory ought to consist of:

• What type of unit
• Who has the product
• Where by is the gadget (college or classroom)
• State of the lifecycle status (in-use, maintenance, finish-of-existence)
• Cost and invest in information and facts these kinds of as acquire date

This central machine stock could be a spreadsheet for small educational facilities, but this gets to be very cumbersome for bigger organizations. A wonderful reminder from Dean (pay attention to our discussion below) is that if districts decide to use a spreadsheet, they should really concentrate on the high quality of facts alternatively than amount. If the data gets inaccurate, it isn’t valuable.

Holding the facts that really should appear on a central product stock accurate can definitely be tricky. And this is in which possessing an asset management tool like VIZOR (intended particularly for K-12 users) can help. A central gadget inventory should work in conjunction with a person-to-one particular processes, this kind of as workflows for missing and stolen devices, to make absolutely sure knowledge is generally precise. For instance, VIZOR self-support portals allow for households and academics to enter information and facts (like when a unit is dropped), and the process updates quickly.

Have a Clear Maintenance Plan (with processes)

The 3rd and closing idea on the listing is acquiring a obviously documented restore plan and maintenance techniques. Getting a coverage is just one action, the next stage is to make sure it is communicated to all stakeholders in your local community.

When I spoke with Dean from VIZOR on the podcast previously this 12 months, this tip came up in our conversation. He shared how they see the number of Repairs raise considerably when a faculty goes one-to-just one and products transfer out of the classroom. Having said that, the VIZOR team has located that possessing a maintenance policy that is plainly communicated to learners and people can essentially cut down the range of repairs.

Below are a couple of thoughts VIZOR shared that can support you make a mend policy at your school or district:

• Who is accountable for repairs — faculty district or people?
• Who will do the repairs (ex., technical team at the faculty or an outsourced firm)?
• Will obtaining unit coverage be obligatory? 
• What product will the pupil use even though their machine is getting fastened?
• Will the cost of the fix be billed to people? 
• How will you tell all stakeholders, notably moms and dads and learners, of the mend policy?

Chromebook administration instruments like VIZOR can support schools regulate their system repairs, warranties, chargeback charges, and insurance policies. So if you are taking care of Chromebooks at your university or district this calendar year, VIZOR can assist!

Use this backlink to timetable a demo with the VIZOR crew to learn much more about what they present faculties and districts running Chromebooks or a one particular-to-a person initiative.