MicrosoftEDULab features Joey Charging Carts for Securing, Charging and Deploying Devices in Schools
Madrid, Spain - LocknCharge, a leading provider of innovative charging solutions for mobile devices, is pleased to announce that its Joey Charging Cart has been included as part of the MicrosoftEDULab in Madrid, Spain.
The MicrosoftEDULab is a state-of-the-art technology center dedicated to providing educators with the tools and resources they need to enhance learning experiences for their students. The lab features a range of cutting-edge technologies, including Microsoft Surface devices, interactive whiteboards, and other innovative tools designed to engage students and promote collaborative learning.
As part of its commitment to providing educators with the best possible tools and resources, the MicrosoftEDULab has selected LocknCharge's Joey Charging Carts as a recommendation for securing, charging, and deploying devices in schools.
The Joey Cart is a versatile and flexible laptop or tablet trolley that can accommodate up to 30 or 40 mobile devices. The trolley features a compact, lightweight design that makes it easy to move between classrooms. They’re designed with the needs of educators in mind, offering a range of innovative features that make device management and charging simple and efficient.
The cart is easy to cable and provides a cable management system that keep cords organized and tangle-free. It features a convenient top-loading design with mobile device baskets that make it quick and easy to pass out and pack up devices, giving teachers back valuable teaching time every day.
For more information about the MicrosoftEDULab and its innovative technology center, visit the center's website.
4 Benefits of a Secure Laptop Charging Cart for Esports Programs and How to Choose the Best One
Egaming, or esports, has emerged as a popular form of entertainment among children and teenagers in recent years, with professional gaming competitions drawing millions of viewers worldwide. As a result, many schools have started to integrate esports programs into their curriculum to keep up with the changing times and to incorporate esports skills into real-world career application.
These programs range from casual after-school clubs to competitive teams that participate in tournaments and leagues. Proponents of egaming programs argue that they can improve teamwork, strategic thinking, and digital literacy among students – and because of these benefits, schools throughout the world are investing in esports programs.
IT equipment needed for esports can be very expensive and is often a barrier for schools looking to implement or expand their egaming programs – which is why a secure laptop charging solution is imperative to mitigating unexpected costs due to stolen or missing egaming devices.
Here are 4 ways a secure charging cart can help esports teams:
1. Keeps laptops safe and secure
A laptop charging cart provides a safe and secure environment for egaming teams to store and charge laptops when not in use. Laptop charging carts are often designed with durable materials that can withstand bumps, knocks, and other potential hazards during transport or storage to ensure your expensive gaming investment is protected.
2. Simplifies organization and reduces clutter
An open-concept laptop charging cart helps egaming teams stay organized by providing dedicated spaces for each laptop and other equipment. This makes it easier for team members to find laptops quickly and reduces clutter on gaming tables or in team rooms.
3. Increases productivity
With all laptops charged and ready to use, egaming teams can focus on practicing and competing instead of worrying about battery life. Charging carts enable teams to keep all their laptops in one place, reducing the need for team members to spend time searching for power outlets.
4. Offers convenient mobility
Egaming teams can easily move a secure laptop charging cart from one location to another, making it a convenient option for traveling to competitions or events. Charging carts have durable wheels and handles that make them easy to move around.
Top Features to Consider When Evaluating the Best Charging Cart for Your Esports Program
1. Open Concept, Top-Loading Cart Design
A charging cart designed to fit a specific device will limit the ability to charge other technology in the future. Open-concept designs provide ultimate flexibility to evolve as your egaming program changes and grows.
Look for carts, like the LocknCharge Joey Cart or Carrier Cart, with removable racks and baskets that can accommodate anything that “fits in the box” – eliminating the worry that you’ll be stuck with outdated charging carts as your laptop technology changes.
Plus, a top-loading design provides visibility and access to devices or accessories more quickly than a traditional shelf-style cart or cabinet.
2. Cycle Charging System for Greedy Esports Laptops
Look for Carts with power management like ECO Safe Charging, which cycles power for a specified duration to devices in groups rather than full power to all devices at once. This ensures that all laptops inside are receiving some level of charge in a shorter time without causing general electrical overload.
3. Device mobility that can go the distance
Charging carts on wheels can be an “e”game-changer for teams that travel. The mobility of a cart enables teams to load all of their technology into one container and move it wherever it’s needed for play. Plus, mobile device carrying baskets provide additional mobility to allow hand out and pack-up of 5-10 devices at a time.
4. Durable, secure cart construction
Egaming and esports equipment can be very expensive, which is why a durable and secure cart is critical to protecting your investment. Choose an esports laptop charging cart with solid, steel construction and a generous warranty to maximize your budget.
Smart Locker Overview: A better way for schools to physically manage mobile device technology for students and staff
Learn how to deploy mobile devices faster without the need for staff to be physically present.
When a student forgets a device, when educators or students are being on-boarded or off-boarded, or when anyone else needs a quick device swap – you can simply send them to a FUYL Tower Smart Locker to access a working device.
Tower administrators simply provide the end user with a bay number that contains a ready-to-go device inside. End users then enter an assigned PIN, the door opens, and they'll be able to access the device inside.
Tower actions are tracked in LocknCharge Cloud, so as the person is retrieving their device, Tower activity is logged on the back end. The Cloud allows you know who is taking what, which helps with breakage, loss, theft and overall accountability.
Schedule a Live Product Demo
Schedule a live video demo with a LocknCharge team member to get a closer look at how our products help make your life easier.
Smart Charging Lockers Eliminate Device Downtime for Students at Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
Mobile devices are critical to education, but when a student or teacher doesn’t have a working device, it can halt learning. Addressing the effects of device downtime is no longer optional, and forward-thinking schools like Los Angeles Unified School District are getting students back to learning faster by implementing Smart Charging Lockers from LocknCharge.
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Smart Locker Project Overview
1,800
FUYL Units
1.5 YR
Time Frame
$22M USD
Investment
What started as an idea to solve device management during school shutdowns has evolved into an in-person and remote learning program that will reduce device downtime caused by lost, forgotten or broken mobile devices.
“Device downtime means less classroom instruction, and the students lose valuable class learning experience,” said Phillip Lucero, Senior IT Business Efficiency Analyst at LAUSD.
LAUSD, the second largest system in the US, turned to LocknCharge to provide students and educators with access to ready-to-use devices anytime they’re needed. As part of their phase 1 roll-out, the District is deploying 1,800 LocknCharge FUYL Tower™ 15’s across all of their school sites.
The District’s Department of Information Technology and their technology reseller partner worked with LocknCharge’s Strategic Account Executive, Vince O’Rourke, to fulfill their $22M investment. Together, the three partners devised a successful deployment plan to deliver, configure and install 300 Towers each quarter over the 2022-2023 school years.
“After vetting different vendors and companies, we felt that LocknCharge was the best fit and product option for the district. Once we started working with Vince from LocknCharge, it was clear we picked the right company and product for LAUSD.”
– Phillip Lucero, Senior IT Business Efficiency Analyst at LAUSD
Smart Lockers save schools time and money by automating loaner programs, providing students with self-service devices, and ensuring device accountability. Students at LAUSD will get back to learning faster while also affording IT team members and faculty more time to focus on impactful, strategic projects.
FUYL Tower™ Smart Charging Locker Highlights
Flexible, Multi-Use System: Used for broken device exchanges or check-in/out programs
Centralized, Web-Based Portal: Admins can view and manage all Towers remotely from one portal
Contactless Device Exchanges: 24/7/365 access to devices saves time for students, teachers and IT
Device Accountability: Tower activity is tracked in the LocknCharge Cloud’s event log, reducing breakage and loss
Roster Management: Manage end users with the internal directory, via an LDAP-compatible directory such as Active Directory or through a native integration to Google’s directory services
Help Desk Integration: Easily integrate the Cloud with systems like Incident IQ and Learn21's Tech Director Toolbox (One2One Manager) for end-to-end device management
Secure: Data integrity, physical and network security, and resiliency are a top priority
Lifetime Warranty: FUYL Towers are backed by a lifetime warranty on the main frame, electrical and all other components*
World-Class Customer Service and Support: Our knowledgeable, friendly team promptly assists with any questions or issues that may arise
Schedule a Live Product Demo
Schedule a live video demo with a LocknCharge team member to get a closer look at how our products help make your life easier.
Connected Devices, Streamlined Learning: Smart Charging Lockers Help Students Avoid Device Downtime
A look at how device downtime hurts student learning – and what to do about it.
US News | Smart Brief Update | WINTER 2022
The widespread adoption of technology in K-12 learning during the pandemic has enabled distance learning, personalized instruction and many other classroom benefits, but this new reality comes with challenges.
In the US alone, Education Week found that 84% of elementary schools and 90% of middle and high schools have adopted one-to-one device access for students. Furthermore, during a November 2022 survey of 171 US-based teachers, LocknCharge discovered that 59% of teachers require the use of a device during class three to five times per week on average — and 55% of teachers require the use of a device at home at least one time per week on average. These findings demonstrate the dependence on device usage for student learning.
59% of teachers require the use of a device during class 3-5 times per week on average.
55% of teachers require the use of a device at home at least once per week on average.
As more schools see the benefits of equipping students with devices, these costs are becoming a permanent part of the school budget. However, putting the right systems in place can go a long way toward helping schools operate technology efficiently and effectively.
As a result, schools are now undergoing a regular “computing device return-and-repair ritual,” EdSurge reports. In Atlanta, lost or damaged devices cost the public school system $3.5 million in one year, with about 11% of devices issued to students never returned.
The benefits of keeping devices charged, safe and operational can’t be understated: Technology is helping to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s workforce, and it is ushering in a new era of personalized instruction that helps improve outcomes for all students.
All over the country, school districts are going to great lengths to keep devices working at peak performance — knowing full well that if they do not, teachers may ditch them altogether, reverting to pen and paper, EdTech Magazine reports.
Given these risks, schools should take the effects of lost and broken devices seriously.
The Challenge of Device Downtime
Learning outcomes are greatly affected when a student or teacher doesn’t have a working device in hand for instruction, class participation or homework. When an electronic device used for learning breaks or has any other downtime issues, the student is quite literally locked out of their learning resources — plus, there are other classroom implications when devices aren’t available.
In fact, the same November 2022 LocknCharge survey revealed that 57% of educators are helping to replace student devices at least one time per week on average, taking time away from teaching.
57% of teachers are assisting students with replacement or loaner devices at least one time per week on average.
In addition, of the educators surveyed, 63% stated that students who do not have a working device at school experience lost learning time.
63% of teachers site lost learning time for students who don't have access to a working device for class.
There is also the issue of device and data security, which is more difficult to manage when students are using their own devices, or those of parents. A school-issued device maintained with security and data protection in mind is a safer one, both for the student and the district. Data and other security falter when a student has to fall back on a home-sourced device.
And what happens when that device is lost? Just take the massive security breach of Illuminate Education in January 2020, for example. It has raised questions about the safety and security of student data in this new era, and that makes it more important than ever for schools to adopt security measures for devices. All of this is more easily managed through school-issued devices, and having backups readily available.
Real-World Examples of Keeping Students Online, Protected
In the past, minimizing the effect of student device downtime has been a challenge, but thankfully, tech-savvy districts are finding ways to greatly reduce the problem.
Oklahoma’s Moore Public Schools
Instruction at Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma is spread across 36 sites and about 136 square miles. The costs of managing a 1:1 device system can quickly add up when it can take a 30 minute drive to deliver a device to a teacher or student. And when parents are asked to drive that distance to pick up devices for their children, equity concerns emerge that could leave some families without access to the technology needed for students to excel in school.
Earlier this year, the school system began piloting LocknCharge’s FUYL Tower Smart Lockers and the Incident IQ Help Desk ticketing system integration to better manage their device infrastructure and offer students a way to easily access devices when they need them.
The towers are placed in high school and college media centers, for example, where staffers and students can check them out as needed.
Now, rather than trade emails back and forth with a student to schedule a broken device exchange, the technology team can remotely issue a device to that student via one of its FUYL Towers. Students can quickly and easily swap out the broken device for a new one at their convenience.
"The goal is to be close to zero downtime for any event that takes students and teachers away from engaging and effective learning."
– Jun Kim, Director of Technology, Moore Public Schools
“This level of technology operations is a must-have in today’s learning environments,” says Jun Kim, Director of Technology at Moore Public Schools. “The goal is to be close to zero downtime for any event that takes students and teachers away from engaging and effective learning,” Kim says. “It’s essential to utilize technology as a tool to help increase our student achievement and to help prepare those students to thrive in that digital college or digital career environment.
Smart Lockers Help Schools Manage Devices Efficiently
Automation technology is making it possible to reduce the time technology departments must spend addressing issues such as damaged and lost devices.
When it comes to designing products for educational settings, LocknCharge has more than 20 years working directly with school districts to meet their needs. The company is the leading global manufacturer and supplier of mobile deployment solutions with headquarters in Australia, the USA, Europe and Japan.
Los Angeles Unified School District
Recently, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest system in the US, turned to LocknCharge for autonomous checkout smart lockers, so students and educators can access charged and ready-to-use devices more conveniently.
LAUSD’s decision to add 1,800 LocknCharge FUYL Towers was originally prompted during the COVID-19 shutdown. The district needed a way to distribute devices safely to students and parents in a manageable way.
“After vetting different vendors and companies, we felt that LocknCharge was the best fit and product option for the district,” said Phillip Lucero, Senior IT Business Efficiency Analyst at LAUSD.
What started as a solution to a device management crisis has morphed into an in-person assist, too. LAUSD students and teachers rely on the LocknCharge lockers to reduce in-person downtime from lost, forgotten or broken devices.
“Reducing device down time for students and teachers means more classroom interaction for students. Device down time means less classroom instruction, and the students lose valuable class learning experience,” Lucero said.
— Phillip Lucero, Senior IT Business Efficiency Analyst, LAUSD
School districts of all sizes can benefit from what LocknCharge offers, from a single tower to hundreds, with features such as overseeing bay reservations remotely, tower usage reports, external user directory integration and external ticketing system integrations. At Moore Public Schools, Kim says working with LocknCharge has offered “amazing” results.
“They look at how they can incorporate a technology or tool to make it more efficient with the school and classroom in mind,” Kim says. “The biggest challenge when it comes to devices is that accidents happen,” Kim notes.
Kim’s team has established a process to address that, from steps teachers can take to troubleshoot devices to ways they can easily swap out devices when they require repair.
Without an automated process, the district would “definitely increase time and energy,” Kim says, and take away from time that could be spent resolving other issues.
Oregon’s Beaverton School District
The Beaverton School District in Oregon serves over 60,000 students. The schools rely heavily on an online learning management system for its curriculum, meaning students must have access to technology at school and at home, explains Mac McMillian, the district’s Administrator for Information & Technology.
“In most cases, without the technology, they cannot complete their work,” McMillian points out.
The biggest challenge is in classrooms, which were not built with the idea that every student needs access to a charging port.
“We have to rely on the students to arrive at school with a charged device or have a stockpile of loaner devices for them to complete their work,” McMillian says.
At the onset of the pandemic, Beaverton School District invested in 10 LocknCharge FUYL Tower Smart Lockers to provide students a contactless way to exchange devices during remote learning. Now, those towers are serving as charging stations and lockers for safe storage overnight when students don’t need to take devices home. They also house backup devices that are checked out when students experience breakage or other issues that slow down their connected learning.
McMillian says the district hasn’t yet quantified the savings from their deployment of smart lockers, but the qualitative benefits are evident.
"The towers at the central office are saving a significant amount of time."
— Mac McMillian, Administrator for Information and Technology, Beaverton School District
“The towers at the central office are saving a significant amount of time for both our staff assigned to the central office and to those needing to retrieve or drop off equipment or materials. They no longer have to wait for someone to come meet them, they can securely drop it for them, and our central staff can pick it up at their convenience knowing exactly where it is located,” McMillian adds.
Conclusion: Minimizing Learning Disruptions and Managing Devices More Efficiency
The shift toward technology-driven education is an unstoppable phenomenon that preceded the pandemic and has been expedited as a result of it. Many districts see the potential to improve learning and better equip students for the future by availing the benefits of devices.
Yet the maintenance, oversight and replenishment of these devices is a significant new cost for districts that can serve as an impediment. That’s why it is crucial for technology teams to put the systems in place to minimize learning disruptions and manage devices efficiently.
To download a PDF of this story, click here.
About LocknCharge
LocknCharge is a software and hardware company that is revolutionizing the way organizations manage mobile devices and other physical assets. During their 20+ years of experience, they’ve come to understand many of the challenges organizations face with device management.
LocknCharge exists to help schools and businesses uncover a better way to manage devices with less oversight, secure devices from theft, and minimize device down time. Their portfolio of Cloud-Connected Smart Lockers will not only save time, money and other resources — they will also make your life easier.