Security

Manage and Secure All of Your K–12 Endpoints

Rely on technology partners and cloud-based management software designed for education.

Michael Poling is a senior consulting engineer at CDW.

K–12 IT departments are as distinctive as districts themselves. I’ve worked with schools as large and complex as corporations, and I’ve worked with schools where the physical education teacher is working part-time in IT. This equates to different resources, levels of expertise and challenges.

Large or small, though, these departments are responsible for securing hundreds if not thousands of endpoints. These include student and staff devices and, increasingly, other classroom technology such as augmented and virtual reality headsets.

Cloud-based endpoint management simplifies this task, while working with an experienced technology partner like CDW helps K–12 IT leaders contend with operational and security challenges.

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The Endpoint Management Tools to Consolidate and Simplify Security

When it comes to helping schools manage their endpoints, the first step is mobile device management. Cloud-based MDM gives IT leaders a centralized console through which they can remotely configure the security settings of all district laptops and endpoints.

For education environments, there are solutions with simplified interfaces that help IT professionals manage device security settings.

Microsoft Intune for Education is one example. On the back end, the education version is identical to the standard version of Intune, with the same capabilities, but the education license comes with a simplified version of the main console. This streamlined console saves school IT teams time by providing access to hundreds of configuration options, advanced security policies, compliance settings and integration with Microsoft Entra ID and Azure Information Protection.

The Growing Need to Secure AR/VR Headsets

As AR/VR headsets become more popular in K–12 classrooms, IT teams find themselves tasked with securing those devices as well.

Meta offers Horizon managed services (HMS) for its devices, and there are third-party management solutions as well, such as ArborXR, which schools can use for AR/VR technologies. These let IT teams enact role-based access controls to configure devices so teachers and students — or even students using the headsets in different classes — can access the software they need without other security risks or distractions.

IT leaders can also use these management tools to lock down browsers, keeping students on task by preventing them from accessing unrelated sites on the web.

READ THE REVIEW: Inspire creativity with the HTC VIVE Focus 3 virtual reality headset.

As schools adopt these new devices and bring them onto their networks, the CDW team can use our configuration services staff and expertise to help schools get the devices implemented, charged and distributed to classrooms.

The Value of Working With a Technology Partner

School leaders don’t always know the right questions to ask when implementing and configuring new devices. Working with a partner like CDW gives them the insight and expertise they need. We ask the right questions, helping schools make informed decisions and then follow through.

Another benefit is that our team is vendor-agnostic. We have experts who can help districts find the right solution across a range of products instead of shoehorning them into a tool that doesn’t fit their schools’ needs.

School environments are complex, but our team of experts is interconnected and able to tackle a range of problems, allowing us to offer full-stack solutions. For example, when we’re talking about endpoints, another common concern is connectivity. CDW’s experts have experience with all types of wireless solutions, including Starlink. They can talk to schools about using Starlink as a backup to their regular network.

Whether K–12 IT teams are asking about securing endpoints, connecting endpoints or managing endpoints, someone on our team has the solution.

This article is part of the ConnectIT: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Technology series.