Twenty-five years ago, schools were in the early phases of implementing technology to help simplify operations and improve district operational efficiency. At that time, email was in its infancy, home computers were just becoming more commonplace, and Wi-Fi was just being introduced to the world. Most of us could not fathom where we would be today, with most business, communication, and engagement being conducted on pocket-sized computers that also replaced maps, libraries, and in many cases, wallets, calculators and watches.
From File Cabinets to Digital Profiles
As recent as a decade ago, most schools still relied on paper to manage everything. Student files were stored in walls of cabinets and archived to basements; student health records were paper based; letters were sent home to parents for everything from enrollment to permission slips. Today, districts can access information about students with a simple click of a button; health records are often integrated with county health services for the most up-to-date immunization and health information; parents receive a text updating them about changes to schedules, can pay fees and lunch costs online, and have their own portals to log in and keep track of their children’s academic progress.
School Digitization – Speed Bumps and Successes
As schools started digitizing, there was no comprehensive solution that provided support for the entire educational operation. Schools were forced to cobble together a variety of disparate technologies, and not all of them worked well together. This caused a lot of extra work and complexity that took time and opened the districts up to risk. It was nearly impossible to ensure student data privacy. But these early technologies did prove one thing: digitalization was revolutionary in terms of improving operational efficiency and reducing costs.
Modern Day Solutions Address Student Data Privacy Concerns while Revolutionizing Operational Efficiency
EdTech Magazine highlighted five ways today’s technology solutions, like GG4L’s School Passport, improve district operational efficiency without sacrificing student data privacy. These solutions also free teachers to spend more time on instructional activities and engaging with students.
Single Sign-On
GG4L’s School Passport offers a unique approach to SSO. It doesn’t matter if users start in a learning portal, an LMS or from an application, School Passport securely authenticates them. We sit quietly behind the scenes and make SSO work with anything.
Automated Rostering
GG4L’s School Passport PII shield offers all the benefits of using PII data while mitigating most of the cost and risk. And with IDM, school administrators no longer have to spend countless hours creating, updating, or deleting accounts. IDM does all of this for you. Students get access to their critical accounts, faster.
Secure Data Exchange
Integrate your SIS and/or LMS with School Passport one time then, have one click rostering with thousands of EdTech applications. One data privacy agreement, and the latest in data protection using PII Shield. Keep your students safe.
Analytics and Visualization Tools
GG4L’s Engagement module provides instant insight to district leaders, teachers, and students. School leaders can instantly see how learning is being accomplished on all devices. Educator-designed visualizations simplify thousands of data points and allow the ability to drill down to a specific student by the minute.
Administrative Automation
GG4L’s School Passport takes security and automation to a new level, freeing educators to focus on teaching and engaging with students while edtech solutions are pre-vetted and can be added with the click of a button.
GG4L’s School Passport (also available in enterprise edition) empowers school-based choice of preferred digital tools that have been centrally vetted by IT professionals and published on-demand by school administrators or staff. It increases data privacy and security with advanced governance and privacy tools that monitor and regulate the sharing of PII data, including email accounts. Learn more about how GG4L helps improve district operational efficiency.
