The Value of Device Tracking

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The walls of the classroom have permanently expanded far beyond the reach of campus. No one sees that more vividly than school IT pros protecting devices and networks reaching far beyond their geographic capabilities.

According to the CoSN (Consortium for School Networking) report on the State of Edtech Leadership 2021, 95 percent of school IT teams were providing off-campus services, which was quite the jump from 40 percent in 2020. 30 percent of school districts worked with the community to provide Wi-Fi hotspots. And concern for digital equity skyrocketed to 97 percent of respondents. We know devices owned by the district will migrate from school to home and back again. But you can keep tabs on your pricey technology using your SIS.

 

An old tool repurposed

Textbook tracking systems can be used for devices too. Administrative codes can reflect the condition, cost, price if lost, and whether or not the device should leave the building. You’ll know who has which device, how much it’s worth, what condition it was in when you parted with it, and when to get new ones.

 

A foundation for communication

Assigning items to individuals supports IT troubleshooting efforts when help is requested. You’ll already know who has which item and what potential problems you may encounter. Items tend to get forgotten or lost in commutes and bus rides to and from school. If someone from the community finds one, your branding can reflect where it can be returned.

 

A step in a secure direction

Fast-forward to the 2023 results of CoSN’s State of Edtech Leadership report. With 12 percent of respondents reporting they allocate zero budget dollars to cybersecurity, a crucial step in creating a defense is to figure out the different devices and points of entry.

“If you don’t know what you have, you can’t defend it,” says Amy McLaughlin, cybersecurity program director at CoSN. In school districts with hundreds of thousands of devices to keep track of, automating the process as much as possible with a strong edtech solution is priceless. The cost of proactive security will always outweigh the risk of reactive security.
 

Follow-up resource: Device tracking

Find out how device tracking works in a short video explaining the process within an SIS.
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