Alternative School

A leading school for at-risk youth required a wireless teaching solution that could be issued to students, yet locked down and completely controlled by teachers during school.

As part of a government pilot program engineered to equip at-risk students with additional learning tools, the solution also needed to provide absolute flexibility for students when they were away from school. Thus, the twin challenge of giving teachers total control in the classroom, while simultaneously enabling students to freely use the learning device while at home.

Field-Ready Solutions:

STS’s proprietary field-ready approach puts devices in our customers’ hands ready to operate, right out of the box. This is essential to creating a solution that is deployed efficiently and seamlessly, with a minimal burden placed on our customers’ internal operations. That way the benefits of the technology can be leveraged immediately, with no downtime, no obstacles, and no delays. In contexts where our technologies are critical to achieving objectives – as was the case with this alternative school – our field-ready approach plays a key role.

For this field-ready solution, STS loaded 400 Dell Inspiron 11z netbooks with an application developed by a remote device management solution provider. This application enabled teachers to completely control the netbooks while class was in session. Essentially, whatever was on the teacher’s screen was wirelessly transmitted to the students’ screens as well. While the device was “locked,” students were able to view instructional lecture content, with intermittent breaks to engage in interactive testing and quizzing.

STS also created geo-fencing that unlocked the devices once they were off school property, thus enabling the students to freely use their netbooks for homework and research after school hours. A secondary fence was created around the city – offering school officials immediate notification should the netbook leave city limits, a key indicator of theft.

As part of the field-ready process, STS charged, labeled, and asset-tagged each netbook. Each device was also subjected to our rigorous quality assurance checks. The complete, tailored solution arrived at the customer’s location ready to perform, right away.

Like most schools, our customer operated with limited IT staffing and resources, along with an inflexible budget. STS served as an effective alternative to hiring permanent staff, providing an outsourced solution that enabled the project to be deployed quickly, efficiently, on time and on budget.

As for the solution itself, teachers at the school were able to enhance the classroom experience for all of their students through an innovative teaching methodology. What’s more, they were able to engage with students after school hours through the dissemination of timed homework assignments that were monitored and tracked through the remote device management application. This helped inspire greater commitment from the students once they were outside the classroom – thus meeting a key objective in educating youth who live in challenging home environments.