Hardware

How Interactive Displays Fit Into a K–12 Device Ecosystem

The right management tools and retrofit options let K–12 IT teams extend the life of classroom displays while keeping them secure and up to date.

Adam Stone

Adam Stone writes on technology trends from Annapolis, Md., with a focus on government IT, military and first-responder technologies.

For K–12 IT teams, managing a fleet of interactive displays spread across dozens of rooms can become a heavy lift.

“Each display is a connected teaching device that needs to be configured, secured, updated and supported over many years,” says Sara Murray, executive vice president and chief product officer at SMART Technologies. “For lean IT teams, small things become significant when repeated across dozens or even hundreds of classrooms.”

When IT struggles to manage these devices, instructional momentum can suffer. “A missing app or a wrong setting can force a teacher to stop and troubleshoot,” she says. Students lose learning time, and IT gets pulled away from more high-impact work.

DISCOVER: Find the right hardware and software solutions for your classroom with SMART Technologies.