Case study: How one Trust unified their digital ecosystem without breaking the bank

Historically, the “IT Suite” was a destination; a specific room where students went to interact with technology. Now, modern pedagogy demands that technology be omnipresent and invisible. But, in the rapidly evolving landscape of educational IT, schools often face a difficult dichotomy. On one side, there is a pressing need for modern, agile computing that mirrors the devices students and teachers use daily. On the other side sits the reality of budget constraints and legacy hardware that’s present, if not fully functional.

For Asset Education, an award-winning multi-academy trust of fifteen primary schools across Suffolk, the challenge was clear. Their past investment in expensive interactive displays had become sluggish and incompatible with modern workflows. The solution was not to rip and replace but to upgrade and integrate.

The Cost of Disconnected Devices

The logistical hurdle has always been the friction between devices. A teacher might plan a lesson on a Chromebook at home, only to arrive at school and face a desktop PC connected to an interactive whiteboard with different login credentials, a different operating system and a completely different experience. This unnecessary downtime creates “dead air” where students start to disengage while a teacher struggles with cables and slow logins.

The Sustainable “Plug-in” Solution

The pivotal innovation for Asset Education was the introduction of the Chrome OPS module. In simple terms, OPS is a computing module that slots directly into the side of an existing interactive display and takes its place as the brain of the operation. This capability is profound for school budgets and sustainability strategies. 

Rather than disposing of older displays that still have functional yet outdated processors, schools can simply plug in the ViewSonic Chrome OPS module. It offers “a new lease of life” as Asset Education’s IT Manager, Joshua Capon, describes. It is an environmentally friendly approach that maximises prior investments while delivering cutting-edge performance.

For educators, the technical specifications are secondary to the user experience. The standout benefit reported by the staff is the familiarity that Chrome OPS provides. Because the OPS module runs ChromeOS, the large interactive display behaves exactly like the Chromebooks teachers and students are already using. Kim Cruddington, an SEN Inclusion Facilitator, highlights how this familiarity reduces cognitive load, giving her the headspace to focus on what matters most: teaching.

Unified Security and Management

From a school infrastructure perspective, the shift to a unified ChromeOS ecosystem has simplified management while bolstering security. Managing a fleet of Windows desktops alongside Chromebooks and iPads creates a fragmented landscape for IT support, but moving the front-of-class display to ChromeOS enabled Asset Education to bring everything together. 

Joshua emphasises the security benefits that the Chrome OPS box helps them keep children safe in education. Because the OPS module is enrolled in the same management domain as the student and staff devices, the IT team can instantly deploy the same policies, settings and apps to the whiteboard as they do to Chromebooks.

Streamlined Implementation

Furthermore, the deployment is “effortless.” Getech, Asset’s chosen technology partner and #1 Google for Education Premier Partner in the UK and Ireland, supported the rollout by applying the necessary Chrome Education management licences before the hardware arrived on site. This significantly reduced the steps and time it takes to set up and deploy. 

Roger Slade, Business Development Manager at Getech notes that when the school plugs it into their screen, they connect it to the internet and that OPS updates itself to become fully managed. This zero-touch deployment frees up IT staff to focus on supporting learning rather than patching servers.

Impact on Teaching and Learning

Ultimately, the measure of any ed-tech solution is its impact on learning. The ViewSonic Chrome OPS solution has allowed Asset Education to move away from static IT suites to a model where technology permeates every classroom, without getting in the way. 

This agility is crucial for inclusion, as the technology is now more adaptable to the needs of the children by allowing for dynamic changes to text sizes, background colours and accessibility tools directly on the main board just as students would see on their own devices. Louise Ward, a teacher at the trust, sums up the impact, saying that this has helped her deliver a well-rounded, supportive and inviting curriculum for every child in her class.

A Broader Lesson

The case of Asset Education illustrates a broader truth for the education sector: Innovation does not always mean buying the most expensive new hardware. Sometimes it means finding the “missing link” that ties existing investments together. In addition to their credentials as a Google for Education Premier Partner, Getech’s position as a ViewSonic Platinum Partner perfectly positions them as a valued partner for other schools in the UK and Ireland to implement their own interactive display modernisation strategy using Chrome OPS.

Want to see the impact Chrome OPS had at Asset Education? Watch the video case study here.

For more information, contact Getech at team@getecheducation.com or phone 01473 240470.