Create a Plan for Sustainability
Among the challenges districts are facing: locating and recovering missing devices; making sure clear policies and procedures are in place for distribution, collection, and liability; filing insurance claims for those that can’t be found; and budgeting time and staff to inspect, repair, and sanitize the computers and tablets that do come back before they’re redistributed.
Another key to the sustainability of your distance learning programs is ensuring that you squeeze every drop of viability from your device pool. Well before the school year ends, you need to have a plan in place to recover your devices, subject them to a thorough cleaning (of both any sensitive, personal data and their physical casing) and refresh them for the next school year.
What do you envision is the program to get devices back from students at the end of the school year and how will you handle them? Will local staff spend the summer cleaning and disinfecting each device, wiping data and refreshing them for next year…perhaps, like many enterprises, they will be stacked in closet and dealt with later. What about devices that are no longer working, will you dispose of them in an eco-friendly way and ensure you thoroughly wipe the device? Sustainability takes both planning and IT resources.
We’ve talked about engaging technology providers with experience with supporting rapid deployments at scale. Make sure that your preferred provider passes the grade to support you in this effort as well.
Enabling smart end-to-end lifecycle management and support is how you make the grade!
