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White Paper
citrix.com/education 1citrix.com/education
Elevate productivity and
improve outcomes with
innovative learning spacesVirtualizing and redesigning labs and classrooms
for better engagement and reduced IT costs
White Paper
citrix.com/education
Virtualizing and redesigning labs and
classrooms for better learning outcomes
2
Requiring learners to congregate in specific areas at specific times not only feels unnatural to them – remember that the average student
today owns 2-3 mobile devices and routinely
moves between them – but it also hampers
learning outcomes.
Fortunately, this is a great opportunity for IT and
facilities teams to unite around a common goal.
By supporting new curricular models and student
needs, IT has the power to cut costs, fortify data
security, create new efficiencies across entire institutions, and even reimagine the role IT
plays in learning and the student experience.
Put another way, embracing the new IT
paradigm in education serves everyone involved.
This white paper describes how and why
it’s done. One of the key parts of the process involves repurposing the physical spaces that
currently house vastly expensive, outdated
technology, turning them into flexible, collaborative learning spaces. With the right
focus and the right partners, learning spaces
and IT can now complement one another and
create unprecedented outcomes for students.
The promise of new learning modelsEducators are continually developing better
ways to teach, often with students’ evolving
habits in mind. In addition to making technology a permanent part of instruction,
school leaders are realizing that collaboration
can be a more potent approach than isolated
studying. And some of the best learning takes place unscripted and outside the classroom.
Unfortunately, there is often a mismatch
between what educators know will serve students best – new practices and pedagogical
models – and what they’re able to provide
based on IT constraints.
A great example is the flipped classroom.
Under this promising new model, the typical
content-delivery and work times are reversed. Students download multimedia course
content at home; then, they return to class
the next day to work through follow-up exercises and projects with their peers. With
this arrangement, they’re allowed to digest
the course content at a time and in a setting
that works for them – on the go, in their rooms, etc. – and work on assignments alongside their classmates and ask clarifying questions immediately rather than ending
their day stymied and restless.
Flipped classrooms require more than a video
channel and a browser, however. They require
anywhere access to specific education and productivity apps so students can collaborate
and engage with the same tools available on
school machines. Naturally, the IT administrators
who provision these tools to students need
to ensure the integrity of the data and the system as a whole.
The flipped classroom gives us the problem in a nutshell: anywhere access is no longer a perk. It’s pivotal to empowering students to learn,
and it also impacts how we utilize the spaces
they occupy while they’re at school.
Schools worldwide, from primary to university levels, are
discovering that computer labs filled with rows of desktops aren’t meeting the needs of today’s students.
White Paper
citrix.com/education
Virtualizing and redesigning labs and
classrooms for better learning outcomes
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Reconsidering brick-and-mortarNot long ago, the Georgia Tech College of
Engineering, the nation’s largest engineering
school, had a data problem.
On one hand, its students required increasingly powerful software that was expensive to
update and license on hundreds of campus
machines; on the other, the old single-lab
campus model was creating bottlenecks and unnecessary delays during high-use times.
Enter virtualized desktopsThe school adopted Citrix’s XenDesktop. The question they faced, says Didier Contis, Director of IT Services at the college, was
“How do we enable our students to use their personal devices and have access to the tools
they need as part of their instruction?” That
had to be the solution, since the students
demanded mobility and access, and the old
brick-and-mortar computer lab model was becoming unsustainable.
Deploying XenDesktop allowed Contis and his team to offer applications in the same desktop environment students were accustomed to, but without requiring local
installs on students’ devices. They leveraged
the computing power of College of
Engineering equipment in a new distributed
model – one without any lines at the door.
Importantly, the Citrix setup was able to provision
the applications with no degradation in system
performance – often, streaming apps from a
central server actually increases performance –
and software updates went from a scale of
hundreds of individual machines to a single
IT-administrated endpoint.
The Georgia Tech case was a victory for IT and a great example of how technology and physical
space are intertwined. Today, those labs can be
put to better use. Many other schools are
taking a hard look at their physical spaces and reconsidering how they facilitate all sorts of
functions, from testing to group work and unscripted learning opportunities.
Location, location, locationIn 2012, the University of Central Florida (UCF)
refreshed its IT, providing anywhere access and
BYOD support to its 50,000 students. And along the way, leaders discovered how technology
updates can drive changes to physical spaces.
The university transformed what had been a
200-seat computer lab into an innovative new
learning space. They created a versatile new hub
that facilitated peer connections and made
collaboration on group projects easier, while still
accommodating students who wanted to work solo on their own devices. All of this was rooted
in new understandings about good design.
In higher education, these flexible learning spaces, which produce valuable informal
connections and unscripted academic
opportunities, are becoming increasingly
important as learning tools – and as selling
points for prospective college families. Put a
prospective family in a space with excellent wifi, plenty of outlets, flexible seating to facilitate great on-the-fly collaborations, and movable writing boards, and they’ll feel like the school has students’ needs at top of mind.
At UCF, IT Director Craig Froehlich says
the school’s Citrix implementation was fundamental to this transformation because
it created the possibility of repurposing the lab space and strengthened the university’s educational value proposition. “It really ended
up being the perfect complement… because
students could have the software they needed
right on their own device,” he says.
Notably, this took place in the resource-scarce era following the worldwide economic downturn.
“Our focus is not
to give access to Microsoft Office. Our focus is to give access to heavy engineering applications.”- Didier Contis, Director of IT
White Paper
citrix.com/education
Virtualizing and redesigning labs and
classrooms for better learning outcomes
4
Far from being an “extra” cost, IT modernization
in education is more appropriately perceived as
a way to create efficiencies of many kinds. Several schools are already measuring costs savings
measured in the millions.
And then there’s the issue of available real
estate. Schools can’t just expand and build
new buildings at whim; many whose campus footprints were developed during the latter
half of the 20th century have bumped up
against hard limitations on growth space.
Subsequently, they have had to look inward and repurpose the space they already have. At
UCF, the removal of 200 machines from an old
lab created an enormous opportunity without
the need for onerous construction or cost.
The anatomy of Citrix education solutions Citrix solutions for education can empower
mobility, improve education outcomes, and
facilitate next-generation learning – as well
as allow exciting updates to learning spaces. Educators and schools are able to reach students
wherever they are, on whatever device they use,
in order to improve performance, satisfaction,
and graduation rates.
Notable features and applicationsApp and desktop virtualizationpowered by XenDesktop and XenApp Educational institutions can centralize the
management and delivery of Microsoft Windows
apps, as well as student and staff desktops, with a high-definition, seamless experience across locations, devices, and networks. XenApp and XenDesktop allow IT to virtualize applications and desktops to ensure optimal convenience and productivity wherever students, teachers, researchers, and administrators work, even if it’s off-campus. Apps and associated data remain in
the data center, helping support compliance,
data protection, and student privacy while also
offering 24/7 access.
Education mobility managementpowered by XenMobile Students and staff can securely access mobile,
web, SaaS, and Windows apps and data on any
mobile device through an app store with a single
sign-on. Educators, parents, and IT can ensure
that mobile devices in the classroom are being
used appropriately. New students, visiting
professors, and substitute teachers can be
provisioned and deprovisioned in just minutes.
94% of higher education leaders agree that students today should be able to remotely access all the information, data, and software they need, on any device, at any time, and with a consistent user experience.2
Design savvyHere are some tips for
repurposing old spaces
to create mobile-ready,
collaborative environments
that serve students best.
Plug and play:Ensure that wall outlets are
plentiful and accessible, and
that any required peripheral
cables (to projectors, printers,
etc.) are available.
Lost and found: The loss of personal devices
isn’t a problem technologically –
users can simply switch to any
substitute device and log in from
there – but with so many devices
being used at any one time, it
can be wise to create a check-in
or registration system for
personal hardware.
Diverse learners: Although collaboration and
socialized learning is prevalent,
remember the student who
would prefer solitude. Create
nooks or privacy areas to
accommodate different
habits and needs.
White Paper
citrix.com/education
Virtualizing and redesigning labs and
classrooms for better learning outcomes
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Learning spaces aren’t what they used to be.
They’re far better.
The best spaces now create always-on,
always-connected working environments where applications follow students no matter where
they go – on any device and over any network. When they’re on campus, students can
collaborate more effectively and freely, moving
between devices and services; when they’re not,
they can still access the same apps and tools
they need to learn at their best.
Citrix meets today’s IT challenges – and
accommodates tomorrow’s – by enabling IT
to securely and continuously deliver all apps needed for students and educators to succeed.
Businesses are already addressing what they
call the “idea economy” – the new reality of
continuous IT rollout and provisioning – and
proper investment in education should enable
schools to do the same thing. Citrix solutions
are already being used today, in both fields, to create exactly these outcomes.
Learning space redesign isn’t a trend. It’s a
fundamental and necessary transformation
for successful student outcomes. Powered by Citrix solutions, learning space redesign offers
compelling value for education organizations
of all kinds.
Please visit www.citrix.com/education to learn
more about the role of Citrix remote access
technologies in learning continuity.
Conclusion : Embracing learning space evolution
Ensure application availability powered by NetScaler IT can ensure the availability of all applications
via active health monitoring and server load
balancing. Students, faculty and staff will be
able to securely access their applications from
any device, while IT can be assured that there
are no threats to internal network resources from unauthorized access. IT can consequently
manage compliance, information governance
and data protection.
Collaboration and sharing ShareFile – Files – even large images and videos,
presentations, and other memory-intensive
items – can be shared easily and securely
among students, educators, and researchers
wherever they may be. Secure storage and sync
for files across all devices provides a convenient, efficient, and user-friendly experience.
GoToMeeting –
With this face-to-face video collaboration
tool, students can work together – even when they aren’t physically together. In addition,
GoToMeeting allows teachers to host virtual
or distant office hours and tutoring sessions,
and enables students to take virtual field trips.
White Paper Virtualizing and redesigning labs and
classrooms for better learning outcomes
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About CitrixCitrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leader in mobile workspaces, providing virtualization, mobility management, networking and cloud services to enable new ways to work better. Citrix solutions power business mobility through secure, personal workspaces that provide people with instant access to apps, desktops, data and communications on any device, over any network and cloud. This year Citrix is celebrating 25 years of innovation, making IT simpler and people more productive. With annual revenue in 2013 of $2.9 billion, Citrix solutions are in use at more than 330,000 organizations and by over 100 million users globally. Learn more at www.citrix.com.
Copyright © 2015 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenMobile, ShareFile, GoToMeeting, Podio, GoToTraining, GoToAssist, NetScaler, CloudPlatform and CloudPortal are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one of its subsidiaries, and may be registered with in the U.S. and other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
citrix.com/education
Additional Resources• Citrix Mobile Workspaces for Education
• A Tale of three universities: Increasing access, engagement and learning
• University of Central Florida Leverages Citrix Technology to Redesign Learning Spaces