Providing Remote Support to Students and Teachers with Splashtop
Remotely support any device using Splashtop SOS
Summary
Ridley School District switched entirely from in-classroom to remote learning due to COVID-19. In an instant, the school found itself with the need to remotely support 500 teachers /administrators, and 6,000 students. To maintain some sense of normalcy, they needed a remote support process that closely resembled the in-school support model. After trying different solutions, the IT team at Ridley School District chose Splashtop as it met all their remote access needs.
Tracy Dilossi, Systems Administrator/Technology Support for Ridley School District shares the story.
THE CHALLENGE: QUICKLY FINDING A REMOTE ACCESS SOLUTION THAT SUPPORTS MACS AND IPADS
Ridley School District provides an iPad to each student from K-12, and both an iPad and laptop to each teacher. Before COVID-19, the IT team used Apple Remote Desktop to support the Macs, and students would just bring the iPads to the tech office for assistance.
When COVID-19 shut down the campus, Ridley School District had to quickly plan out their remote learning program. This required the ability to provide IT support to student and teacher devices at home.
Initially, the IT team at Ridley School district set up a tech hotline, which gave parents, students, and teachers a way to get technical assistance with their remote learning and teaching needs. During the first week, they struggled with not being able to see what was happening on the devices. Dilossi said, “ We were missing the ability to see what the people on the other end of the phone were doing. As you can imagine, it is nearly impossible to instruct a child to do manual resets and fix other tech issues without seeing the device.”
They evaluated the free version of TeamViewer, but found it lacking since it didn’t provide support to mobile devices and Macs. TeamViewer’s subscriptions didn’t suit their needs, and were too expensive as well. That’s when the team came across Splashtop.
RIDLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT FINDS SPLASHTOP: A HIGH-PERFORMANCE, LOW-COST REMOTE SUPPORT SOLUTION WITH BROAD DEVICE SUPPORT
Dilossi said, “Splashtop provides great performance on our Macs as well as mobile devices. Our Director of Technology purchased three licenses of Splashtop SOS for our department to share, and we found it so useful! We were able to place the SOS app in our self-service portal on the iPads so the student could easily download it if needed. For the Macs, we created directions for installing the SOS app and emailed the teachers when they needed assistance.”
Splashtop SOS enabled the IT team to quickly resolve any technical issues the teachers and students were facing, and therefore, ensure minimal disruption during a remote learning session.
These features of Splashtop SOS were particularly helpful:
Pricing by concurrent technician
Splashtop SOS is priced per concurrent technician rather than by named technician. This allows Dilossi and other team members to share the licenses as long they don’t exceed 3 concurrent remote sessions.
Broad-device support including macOS and iOS
Ridley School District teachers use Mac computers on campus and iPads and laptops at home. Students use iPads for their remote learning sessions. Splashtop SOS allows the IT team to remotely access any student or teacher device with a 9-digit session code, from any device.
Features like in-session file transfers, session recording, chat, and detailed logging make it fast and convenient for the technician to provide support.
Customizable SOS app
The SOS app can be customized with the school districts’ branding including logo, color, and instructions. It can also be made easily available to students and teachers by placing it in the self-service portal.
When technical assistance is required, the teacher or student downloads and runs the app, and provides the session code to the technician, allowing the technician to remote in and assist.
Dilossi concluded by saying, “We would not have been able to support this many devices without Splashtop. It made our support sessions go much more quickly than without it. It’s been invaluable!”
Details
About Ridley School District
Ridley School District is a large, suburban public K-12 school district in southeastern Delaware County, Pennsylvania in the United States. It serves the residents of Ridley Township, and the boroughs of Ridley Park and Eddystone.
About Splashtop SOS
At just $22 per month per concurrent technician, Splashtop SOS enables IT teams to support unlimited computers and mobile devices on-demand, using a 9-digit session code. No prior installation is required.
