Managing Mobile Devices

It seems like it was just a few years back when the first-generation Apple iPad tablets hit the market by storm. That was in 2010 and these tablets quickly found their way into the education market, including a small number of iPads at Barrington 220. Designed by Apple as well-crafted consumer devices, they offered few capabilities to deploy and manage in quantities.  

Since that initial release of iPads, corporations and educational organizations alike have looked towards Apple for ways to deploy, manage, and secure these devices and to do so in quantities.  Apple has listened to these requests and has responded, continuously providing more features to help manage growing numbers of iPad tablets within corporate and educational organizations.

This year, Barrington 220 has partnered with Dell Corporation, leveraging their cloud-based Mobile Device Management (MDM) system to remotely manage mobile devices, including Apple's iPad and iPhone. Through the use of a "third-party" MDM system, Apple provides the ability to inventory, manage, and deploy apps, and do so without handling each device should a change be needed.  If a tablet or phone is lost, especially one that may contain sensitive information, we also have the ability to remotely "wipe" (delete all the information on) that device.

We currently have over 900 iPad tablets within Barrington 220, a number that is expected to climb significantly as our One to World program expands to our elementary schools. Effective device management and device security will continue to be important to our technology department, and as these device numbers grow, we will be continuously looking towards Apple and Dell to help us in this area.

If you are the primary user of a Barrington 220 tablet or device, you may at some point be asked to register your device with our management system. The process is fairly painless, and in return we can push free and purchased apps to your device with little intervention and still push the same apps out once your tablet or phone is changed or upgraded. Should you misplace your device, we can remotely wipe the device before your text messages or photographs are seen by others! Stay tuned for more information regarding device management...