Educational institutions worldwide are trying to create the right learning program for their students in the COVID-19 era. They have learned that hybrid learning, where remote and in-person learning are combined, is the best way to not only keep students and staff safe during the pandemic but also maximize student engagement and enhance the traditional education programs.
The Near-Future: Combination of Remote and In-Person Learning
With hybrid learning programs, educational institutions can enforce student and teacher safety with a smaller group of in-person students while simultaneously delivering effective e-learning programs for other remote students. It also provides an option to offer a 24/7 open lab to students allowing them to complete their lab work from their dorm, home, or anywhere else.
K-12 and higher education institutions are increasingly resorting to Splashtop remote access as a means to make on-campus computer resources available to remote students, just as if they were in-person. By doing so, educational institutions are significantly bridging the gap in the effectiveness of the two distinct learning methods, creating equity among the students.
How Splashtop Enhances Hybrid Learning
With Splashtop, students can remote control on-campus Windows and Mac computers and VMs from any computer or mobile device including Chromebooks, from anywhere. With the high-performance features, they can continue to use licensed desktop applications like Microsoft, Adobe Premiere Pro, AutoCAD, Revit, Final Cut Pro, and many more to complete their coursework – just as they would when on-campus in front of the lab computers!
As Chris Gilbert, Application Technical Analyst at Wayne State University said, “Remote students don’t have a powerful enough computer to handle all the stuff we’re throwing at them. For example, with video editing, the students are doing 4k, even up to 8k, and their MacBook Pros aren’t going to be able to handle that. We have iMac Pros in the labs at school and the students are able to remote in and everything works for them. We now also have a virtual open lab that we’ve always wanted.”
Splashtop features enable IT teams of schools and colleges to easily and effectively manage in-person as well as remote students accessing the lab computers:
Grouping and access permissions
IT admins can group students as well as on-campus computers and VMs and control their access permissions. This way a group of computers can be dedicated to be shared between in-person and remote students. Some computers can also be used for an open lab to provide students with anytime access, giving them the flexibility to complete their tasks outside scheduled lab hours.
Schedule remote access
Once the students and computers are grouped, IT admins can schedule timeslots when students can remotely access the computers. For example, a remote lab can be scheduled when an in-person lab is not taking place. This feature can be leveraged to disable remote access when an in-person lab is ongoing, thereby avoiding conflict. The ability to schedule remote access enables schools and colleges to maximize the use of computer resources as well as provide students with the flexibility of completing their coursework remotely.
Enable exclusive access settings
Use ‘Exclusive Mode’ while creating a remote access schedule to prevent a remote user from connecting to a computer that is already logged into - making it effective for hybrid environments. This way, computers don't have to be dedicated for remote vs. in-person use.
Visual indicators to show computer in use
When a computer is in use, Splashtop shows it visually to the students who have access to the computer during that time. This way, students can avoid initiating a remote connection with that computer.
Ability to set up a pop-up request for remote access
IT admins can enforce permitted remote connections and choose to either accept or reject the connection when the request times out. This feature can be leveraged on computers open to both in-person as well as remote students, wherein an in-person student can either allow or deny the remote student to share the computer when a session is initiated by the remote student.
Ability for students and faculty to collaborate on the same computer
IT can choose to allow two users to remote into the same computer. In situations where a teacher is on-campus and the student is remote or vice-versa, they can both remote into the same computer and collaborate. Similarly, if two students, irrespective of being on campus or remote, can share a computer as long as they are both permitted by IT to do so.
Centralized console to manage all physical and virtual computing resources
IT can manage not only their physical computers but also virtual machines and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) on VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Windows, AWS, Azure, and others, all from within the same Splashtop console.
Try Splashtop for your hybrid computer lab today!
In addition to the above-mentioned features, Splashtop provides robust security, high-performance with very low latency, broad-device support, ease of set-up and use, and much more at an unbeatable price. It is no wonder that Splashtop is the preferred remote lab solution for educational institutions worldwide.
Contact us to learn more about Splashtop for remote labs.
