The best mobile device management tools, or MDM solutions, can help an education institution better keep track of, and control tablets, laptops, smartphones and desktops. The right MDM can help IT admins stay in firm control.
The key here is that a great mobile device management solution will make the work of the IT team far more efficient, ultimately saving time. But on top of that, it will allow for greater control over the mobile devices to ensure all are always working at their best.
The right tool can allow an IT administrator the power to locate, lock, and even wipe devices all remotely from a central location. But, of course, it can do a whole lot more too.
So which is the best mobile device management tool for your school or college? Read on to find out everything you need to know.
- The Best K-12 Learning Management Systems
- Student Information Systems
- One-to-One Computing and Classroom Management
1. Filewave Endpoint Management Suite: Best Overall MDM
Founded in 1992, FileWave provides its Endpoint Management Suite to education, enterprise, and government institutions to assist IT teams throughout the entire lifecycle process of inventorying, imaging, deployment, management, and maintenance.
FileWave’s Endpoint Management Suite is an all-in-one, highly scalable MDM solution that solves the many challenges of managing a diverse and growing population of users, devices, and content. It does this by ensuring organizations have a comprehensive solution that supports both client (desktop) and mobile devices across Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
This all-inclusive, multi-platform unified endpoint management solution offers many unique and powerful features that streamline the entire IT lifecycle process (inventory, image, deploy, manage and maintain) within a single console.
Key features:
- Complete multi-platform support (macOS, iOS, Windows & Android).
- Multi-platform imaging (direct, network, and layered models).
- Patented fileset deployment (deploy anything, anytime, at any level).
- Patented booster technology (highly scalable infrastructure that significantly reduces network traffic).
- True self-healing technology (auto-repair broken installations).
- Device discovery, tracking and security; inventory, license and content management.
- End-user self-service kiosk (user specific, on-demand content, and updates).
- Robust patch management (OS and 3rd party updates).
2. Jamf Pro: Best MDM for Apple
Since 2002, Jamf has been helping more than 4,000 school IT teams, instructional technologists, administrators, and teachers manage Macs and iPads in the classroom to ensure their Apple programs are a success. With Jamf Pro, users can automate Mac and iPad deployment and simplify ongoing management.
Jamf Pro offers ongoing device management that evolves with the changing needs and expectations of the classroom.
Key features:
- Support for Apple’s Device Enrollment Programs to automatically enroll and configure new devices.
- Integration with Apple School Manager and zero-day support for all new Apple releases.
- Definition of settings using configuration profiles, policies, and custom scripts.
- Management of Apple’s built-in security tools: passcodes, security policies, software restrictions, and Lost Mode.
- Access to Jamf Nation, the Apple IT community of 100,000-plus members.
3. Lightspeed Mobile Manager: Best MDM for Schools
Lightspeed Mobile Manager is a unique MDM solution made just for schools. It saves time and money with multi-OS support, intuitive IUs, integration with Apple and Windows programs, and a school-based hierarchy and policy inheritance.
Mobile Manager is designed with a hierarchy to match a district and inheritance to make policies easy to set across levels. It’s multi-OS, and it has classroom controls for teachers.
Key features:
- Ability to control all of your devices remotely with the click of a button.
- Integrate your SIS to automatically create users and groups.
- Manage all of your solutions from a centralized dashboard interface; and more.
4. Securly MDM for Schools: Best MDM for Teachers
Securly puts both IT administrators and teachers in control of classroom devices by providing school-specific mobile device management plus classroom management tools. Securly supports iOS, Android, and macOS. Apple VPP and DEP are supported at both district level and school level.
Teachers can freeze student screens, lock to a specific app or website, and more. Securly is highly scalable, from a single school with just a few carts of devices to large districts with many school locations and thousands of devices in a 1:1 program.
Securly is designed exclusively for schools, so everything from the intuitive interface to the classroom feature set is designed to meet schools needs, rather than corporate enterprise needs, which can be quite different for mobile device management.
For example, schools often have to refresh an entire fleet of devices between school years, so functions for mass-reset help the IT department accomplish this. Schools also have the unique need of sharing administration responsibilities with teachers, who need to make changes at the classroom level. Securly empowers them to accomplish this.
5. Impero Education Pro: Best MDM for Safety
Schools use Impero Education Pro for a wide array of administrative IT tasks such as controlling passwords, managing printers, or setting computers to power on or off at certain times. This saves time for IT departments because they can schedule school-wide installs, patches, and updates from one screen instead of having to physically go to each device.
Impero Education Pro also provides mobile device monitoring tools to help teachers take full control of their classrooms while allowing students to benefit from the use of technology. Teachers can share their screens, send or share files with students, take over or lock students’ computers, create exams, assign tasks, send direct messages to students, or monitor thumbnails of students’ activity in real time to ensure they are on task.
The software also monitors students’ online activity on a school’s network and alerts educators if students use keywords that could indicate cyberbullying, sexting, radicalization, self-harm, or a range of other issues.
Impero Education Pro is unique in that it provides seamless integration across multiple platforms. It consolidates a range of powerful classroom, network, and device management features enabling schools and colleges to reduce costs and improve both staff and student productivity.
Its online safety functionality uses keyword detection technology to help schools safeguard students online, and provides deeper monitoring than many other types of monitoring software.
Impero Software also partners with nonprofit and specialist organizations including Hey Ugly, ikeepsafe, Anad, and the Institute of Digital Citizenship in order to develop its keyword libraries and to connect schools with appropriate resources.
Also Consider: Black Box Wallmount Charging Locker
Whether you’re a teacher, IT tech, or administrator, Black Box Wallmount Charging Lockers are engineered to save your floor space and your budget. Ideal for smaller classrooms that are short on space, the lockers hold 9 or 12 iPad tablets or 15-inch Chromebook laptops.
These tools also give you the versatility to mount multiple lockers together for more storage options. Adjustable rackmount rails enable you to mount other IT equipment too. Plus, the 100% steel lockers hold up to 150 pounds and are guaranteed for life.
Wallmount Charging Lockers are unique because devices and power bricks are accessible from the front, which allows the lockers to be stacked on all sides to form device charging walls. Other lockers need to have access to the front and the back or top, not allowing them to form locker walls. Also, the Wallmount Charging Locker has optional GDS Wireless Charging technology to eliminate device power cords for most tablets used in the classroom.
