CASE STUDY

Intel®Inside™

Consumerization of ITEducation

Top Marks for Tablets

CHALLENGES

• Multiple devices. The college needed to equip lecturers with Microsoft Windows-basedtablet PCs that supported all core applications and programs as well as IT network andsupport requirements

• Complex processes. It needed to enable staff to easily and quickly access core systemsfrom the classroom, while keeping fleet management hassle-free

• Learning barriers. Teachers needed IT resources that would support and enhance, ratherthan hinder, teaching and learning activities

SOLUTIONS

• The right tablets. Lenovo Tablet 2* devices powered by Intel® Atom™ processors andrunning Microsoft Windows 8 Pro were purchased for 600 lecturers

• Windows* platform.Microsoft Windows 8 Pro operating system enables enhanced securityand easy fleet management, using the new fluid-touch interface

• Ongoing training. Lunchbyte sessions inspire all lecturers to drive value from the college’stablet investment by learning how to use technology in the classroom themselves

IMPACT

• Efficient teachers. Lecturers save time with in-class access to the student attendancetracking system and the ability to edit documents on their mobile devices

• Interactive teaching. Teachers are no longer tied to desktop PCs within the classroom,but can interact directly with students

• It just works. Tablets run all key applications and are fully compatible with other hardware,keeping teachers connected to the college network and educational content at all times

• Richer learning. Teachers can video students’ presentations and course discussions to helpthose who struggle with written assessment to improve learning rates and boost grades

Faculty at the City of Liverpool College use Intel®Atom™processor-powered Windows* 8 Pro tablets to teach moreefficiently and engagingly Mobile computing has transformed our lives, both at work and at home. Most young people now see their laptop PC or tablet as an essentialpart of their educational toolkit, and they expect their teachers to use these technologies too. The City of Liverpool College is one of thefirst educational institutions in the UK to equip its entire teaching staff with Microsoft Windows* 8 tablets in order to help them meet thisexpectation while delivering more productive and inspirational instruction. The devices have transformed teaching and assessment, forexample enabling teachers to film student presentations and boost the grades of those who struggle with written work.

“Combining Microsoft Windows 8

with the Intel® Atom™ processor was

a no-brainer for us. Intel® technology

gives the great performance that we

need to run our Microsoft applications,

no matter what the device. Sure

enough, the tablets didn’t disappoint

in terms of computing power.”

Ken Ryan, Head of IT,

City of Liverpool College

Making an impact in the classroom The City of Liverpool College offers a widevariety of further education courses to over16,000 students in the north of England.It’s a busy environment, with students andlecturers constantly on the go, trying tokeep up with hectic schedules and multiplework deadlines.

The top priority for the college’s 1,200 staffis always delivering the best quality lessons.Lecturers want to reduce in-class administra-

tion and maximize teaching time while givingthemselves and their students immediateaccess to all the educational content andprograms they need. Many teachers usedtablet devices to help them do this, but thevariety of models used raised complicationsfor both the staff themselves and the ITteam supporting them.

Ken Ryan, head of IT at the college, explainssome of the issues: “Staff were choosingwhichever device they wanted, so we had

Lecturers help students learn

faster and improve results with

mobile devices to film and review

verbal assignments

On-the-fly document editing and

access to college network enables

teachers to enhance lesson quality

with Intel® Atom™ processor-powered

devices

a range of operating systems and featuresto contend with,” he says. “Our corporate sys-tem is Microsoft Windows-based, and wefound it hard to manage devices that werebased on other operating systems. We could-n’t keep them properly updated with securitypatches, which was a security vulnerability.It was also a complex process getting newusers or devices linked up to our networkand systems.”

Ryan and his team started to consider pro-viding the college’s 600 teaching staff withtablets that met the necessary technicalrequirements. In addition to making the ITsupport team’s life easier, the aim was to en-hance the user experience for the lecturersthemselves.

“Our staff want to work as effectively as pos-sible, and to deliver the highest-quality les-sons and lectures,” explains Ryan. “But theyoften struggled with not having the mostappropriate technology at hand.” As an ex-ample, he explains that the college’s regis-tration system is kept on its central internalsystem, and staff need a computing deviceto access it. In many teaching environments,such as dance studios, it is not possible tohave a desktop PC in the room, so teacherswould have to note attendance by hand andthen update the system later – a time-con-suming and inconvenient solution.

Even in more traditional classroom environ-ments, relying on a static desktop PC couldcreate a barrier between teacher and stu-dents, since the teacher needed to stay atthe front of the class to deliver a presenta-tion and could not interact directly with indi-vidual learners. Teachers who tried to solvethe problem by bringing in tablet devices oftenfound the model they used would not runcore applications like Microsoft Excel* andMicrosoft PowerPoint* and so they could notedit the documents they used most frequently.

“We needed to address all these user expe-rience issues as well as our own technologi-cal concerns,” says Ryan. “Since we wereplanning to invest in a large fleet of tablets,

we needed to make sure we got the bestpossible value from the new technology.”

A no-brainerKnowing that only a Microsoft Windows-based device would meet everyone’s needs,the college chose to purchase 600 LenovoTablet 2 devices, powered by the Intel Atomprocessor and running Microsoft Windows8 Pro. “Windows 8 Pro gives us a better levelof encryption as well as the ability to addnew devices to the domain and apply grouppolicy very simply,” explains Ryan. “It’s a com-pelling corporate solution, since it enablesnetwork log-on, it connects easily to otherhardware through its USB and HDMI ports,and it runs the Microsoft Office* applicationsthat our staff are familiar with and rely on,like Microsoft Outlook* and Microsoft Lync*.”

He continues: “Combining Windows 8 withthe Intel Atom processor was a no-brainer forus. Intel® technology gives the great perform-ance that we need to run our Microsoft ap-plications, no matter what the device. Sureenough, the tablets didn’t disappoint in termsof computing performance.”

The solution was implemented with supportfrom local IT solution provider Gardner Sys-tems, which assisted with the hardwareselection and roll-out, and by Softcat, whichsupplied the tablets themselves.

Sharing teaching innovationsFollowing distribution of the new devices,the college set up an ongoing training initia-tive called Lunchbytes to inspire teachersto make the most of their new resources.Internal experts work with the IT team todevelop content for these sessions, whichhelp share best practices and ideas for usingthe tablets from around the college. “Thisknowledge sharing is essential in encourag-ing adoption among all teachers and lectur-ers,” comments Ryan. “Some are inevitablymore comfortable with new technologiesthan others, and we need to make sure we’rehelping everyone get the most value from

UK further education provider empowers lecturersto innovate in the classroom with Intel® Atom™processor-powered tablets

the devices. At the same time, many staffmembers are finding ways to use the tabletsthat we’d not thought of before, so we needa platform for them to tell others and sharethe benefit.”

Making more time for studentsIn the few months the tablets have been inuse, they have already made a significantimpact on teachers and their students. “Oneof the first use cases we had in mind wasupdating the register at the beginning ofeach class,” recalls Ryan. “Indeed, we’ve seena significant increase in registration trackingrates in our central database as staff cannow update it in real time, and the barrierof having to remember to go and do it inthe staffroom later has been removed. It’ssaved them a lot of time that they can nowspend on working with students andpreparing even better lessons.”

Document editing is now much simpler, sincelecturers can update their presentations ontheir tablets. This has worked so well thatas a next step, the college is considering re-moving all teacher desktop PCs from its class-rooms, replacing them with a tablet dockingstation and an HDMI cable to connect theirtablets directly to electronic whiteboards.

Filming assessments for strongerresultsMeanwhile, one of the more innovative lec-turers at the college has already come upwith an entirely unexpected usage model,which he expects to have a very positiveresult for his students. John Bainbridge, whoteaches in the Business Studies Department,had been looking into ways to record videosof student presentations.

“We initially thought about obtaining somevideo recorders,” Bainbridge recalls, “but thena light came on and we realized we coulduse the tablets. We had it all set up in justa couple of days, and we now have 70 veryhappy students. Not only has it inspired themto improve by being able to watch them-

selves back, but we believe it will drive animprovement in grades as well.”

He goes on to explain that it is not unusualfor very knowledgeable students to strugglein written examinations. “They know theinformation, but find it easier to deliver itverbally through presentations and discus-sion,” he continues. “By having video evidenceof their knowledge which we can submitalongside written work, they have the chanceto get a higher grade. Some students whowere going to fail will pass.”

Interacting with students, all daylongBesides these specific examples, lecturersacross the college are seeing an improvementin the quality of teaching that they can de-liver with the Intel technology-powereddevices. With tablet in hand, they can movearound the classroom and interact directlywith students while still controlling theirpresentation. They can even give the tabletto a student and let them take control of cer-tain aspects of the class, ensuring they remainengaged and motivated and providing a moredirect and personalized learning experience.

Advanced battery life means lecturers’

tablets can stand up to a long day

in the classroom

The registration tracking application is accessed through tablets in class

The devices have also contributed towardsbuilding a stronger rapport between studentsand teachers in many cases. “A lot of ourstudents have their own mobile devices, andthey use them in lessons and for homework,”says Ryan. “When they see their lecturersusing similar technology, it makes it easierfor them to identify with what they’re beingshown. It keeps everyone on the same wave-length.”

Of course, Ryan and his team are also en-joying having the new tablet fleet in place.“We’re very pleased with the specs of thetablets we’ve chosen,” he reflects. “Besidesthe strong performance and the compellingtouchscreen functionality, it’s great havinga USB and HDMI port on the devices so theycan be easily connected to keyboards, pro-jectors and other accessories. The batterylife is also fantastic. Even with heavy use,the tablets last all day, which is importantwhen you need them in every class and youwant to be free from wires and cables, in-cluding the charger. Some devices I’ve seenhave no more than one and a half hours ofbattery life and that would be no good to us.”

Making the most of resourcesThe success of the tablet deployment at theCity of Liverpool College has inspired Ryanto consider further uses for the devices. Inaddition to replacing staff PCs across theorganization with tablets, he is also consid-ering the possibility of further reducing hishardware costs over time by making moreuse of Microsoft Lync. “Everyone with a tablethas this application installed on it,” Ryan ex-plains. “So I’m considering dispensing withstaff telephones and just having everyoneuse their tablets to make calls as well. We’vepiloted this approach and it seems like a viableoption. Lync offers a wide range of collabo-rative tools – from instant messaging to in-class polling – so we can offer staff a suiteof tools through a single application as wellas helping them work more efficiently by beingable to see if the person they’re trying tocontact is available before calling them.”

He concludes: “The work we’ve done withIntel and Microsoft so far is really exciting,and I believe it’s helped position us as one ofthe UK’s most innovative users of IT in ed-ucation. We look forward to benefitting fur-ther from their expertise and technology inthe next phase in our mobile computing jour-ney, and helping our college community bothteach and learn more effectively throughtheir tablets.”

Lessons learned The introduction of innovative technologycan be hugely exciting, and brings withit numerous opportunities. However, it isessential to ensure that the technologyis well matched to user needs, and thatthe target users understand how bestto make use of it. The City of LiverpoolCollege approached this challenge care-fully, not only ensuring that it workedwith leading technology providers tocraft the right solution, but also runningdedicated training to develop its staff’sIT skills on an ongoing basis.

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