District and school technology teams face an ever-growing challenge: managing a growing number of edtech applications. With dozens, if not hundreds, of apps and digital tools in use across their schools, how can IT directors gain a better understanding of edtech usage to optimize their edtech budget?
The answer lies in an unsuspecting place: a school web filter.
You may think a school web filter can only keep your students safe from harmful and inappropriate online content. But Securly Filter does so much more.
Among its innovative new features for the 2024-25 school year, Securly Filter will include edtech usage analytics to help K-12 tech teams make smarter, data-driven decisions.
The Challenges of K-12 EdTech Management
Your teachers have access to a number of educational apps and digital resources, each promising to enhance learning outcomes. But as the number of these tools grows, so does your list of concerns:
- Are you unknowingly wasting precious budget dollars on underutilized or completely unused apps?
- How can you accurately track which apps are being used, by whom, and how often?
- When it’s time to make renewal decisions, how do you decide which apps are worth keeping and which aren’t?
- How do you determine if additional training is needed without visibility into edtech adoption?
- Are shadow IT apps being introduced into your ecosystem, potentially creating security vulnerabilities?
You could rely on manual surveys, vendors’ usage claims, or piecing together reports from individual apps to get the answers you need. But these methods are time-consuming, imperfect, and often provide only limited insights.
There has to be a better way, right? There is with Securly Filter.
Not Your Typical School Web Filter
When you think of a school web filter, what comes to mind? Chances are, a tool that blocks inappropriate content, ensures CIPA compliance, and maybe provides some basic reporting on internet usage. But what if your web filter could do so much more?
Enter Securly Filter. Beyond its primary function of keeping students safe online, Securly Filter is gaining powerful edtech usage and analytics capabilities that were previously unheard of in a web filtering solution.
While other web filters stop at blocking or allowing content, Securly Filter goes further, providing comprehensive edtech usage and analytics through device-level monitoring agents. With reliable data on app usage at your fingertips, you can make data-driven decisions and ensure your edtech budget investments are money well spent.
7 Ways Securly Filter Helps Schools Make Data-Driven EdTech Decisions
Having easy access to information about edtech usage empowers you to make strategic decisions about your investments, ensuring every dollar spent contributes to your students’ educational experience. Here’s what you get with Securly Filter.
1. Comprehensive EdTech Usage Insights
Securly Filter’s edtech analytics agent collects activity data for all websites and apps used on student devices. This means you get a bird’s-eye view of your entire edtech landscape without having to piece together information from multiple sources.
2. Unified Dashboard
Edtech usage data for your entire school or district is consolidated into an easy-to-use dashboard. No more juggling between different app admin panels or compiling spreadsheets. You can visualize aggregated application, website, and device data in one place.
3. Detailed Usage Metrics
Know exactly how apps and websites are being used, or not. You can see which students are using which tools, how often, and for how long. This granular data helps you identify both your star performers and the underutilized resources.
4. EdTech Budget Optimization
By identifying underused or unused apps, you can make informed decisions about license renewals and resource allocation. This data-driven approach helps eliminate waste and optimize your edtech budget return on academic achievement.
5. Training Need Identification
Low usage rates could mean additional training is needed. Edtech usage analytics can help you pinpoint apps with low adoption, so you can investigate and figure out what’s really going on.
6. Shadow IT Detection
Having a comprehensive overview of all apps in use allows you to identify unauthorized applications that may have slipped under the radar. This insight helps you understand what apps are really in use so you can address them preemptively and mitigate the security risks they introduce.
7. Easy Reporting
Generate and export on-demand reports to support your decision-making process. Whether you’re presenting to the school board or discussing renewals with vendors, you’ll have the data to back up your rationale.
Get More from Your School Web Filter
When it comes to managing your edtech ecosystem, the challenges are real. But the solution doesn’t have to be complicated. By leveraging the enhanced capabilities of Securly Filter, district and school technology teams can extract the most value from their web filtering solution, transforming it from a required safety measure into a powerful tool for strategic decision-making.
With comprehensive edtech usage data at your fingertips, you can optimize your edtech budget, ensure resources are being used effectively, identify training needs, and make data-supported decisions that enhance the educational experience for all students.
When it comes to making educational technology decisions, knowledge truly is power. With Securly Filter, that power is already within your reach.
Check out these additional resources to ensure you’re getting maximum value from your school web filter:
