Acer, one of the world’s largest vendors of hardware and electronics, has partnered with Kyalami Schools Group, a community of schools in northern Johannesburg, to launch a locker campaign that allows students to store and retrieve Acer Chromebook devices. The campaign stemmed from a unique challenge that arose during the height of the pandemic when learners had to work remotely or under hybrid conditions. IT managers within schools were not always able to retrieve faulty units from students and repair them in a timely manner. To streamline this process and empower remote learners with a shorter repair cycle, while also providing temporary loan units during repairs, the Acer lockers now allow students to store and retrieve their devices safely on the school premises.
Acer hopes to facilitate uninterrupted, continuous learning in the new hybrid education environment. This campaign serves to expedite repair turnaround times and provide schools with the service excellence they expect. As of November 2021, Acer has rolled out three lockers to three campuses in the Kyalami Schools Group. The intention is to increase the number of lockers and loan units based on the growing requirements of the individual school.
Chromebooks are known for their speed, simplicity, and security and have, in recent years, revolutionised the classroom environment. Used by more than 40 million students worldwide, they provide learners with access to the cloud and various learning tools and platforms, such as Google Classroom and Google Workspace for Education, on an intuitive operating system. They give students everything they need to learn, collaborate, and communicate with teachers and fellow students remotely. Chromebooks are subsidised by Google, making them more affordable, and come standard with best-in-class security features that help protect learners’ information and self-repair internal faults if there’s a potential threat or file corruption. Today, Chromebooks are the top-selling educational device for K-12 schools in Canada, the US, Sweden, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Acer‘s partnership with Kyalami Schools includes the provision of the Acer Chromebook Spin 311 and Chromebook Spin 511 devices.
Mark Naidoo, Group Head of Academics and Innovation at Kyalami Schools, commented on their experiences using Chromebooks, saying, “These devices are purpose-built for modern classroom requirements. Their simplicity, fast start-up times, long battery lives, and plethora of tools at their disposal, make Acer Chromebooks the perfect learning partner for students, while making it easier for teachers and IT administrators to set up and manage a fleet of devices and their policy requirements. Chromebooks have allowed us to overcome many of our pandemic-related challenges, and they’re modernising our approach to education. We currently have 120 units being used at Kyalami, with additional units to be provisioned as demand grows.”
Shawn Marx, Central Regional Lead for Acer Africa, added, “At Acer, we believe that our partners are the lifeblood of our business. The motivation behind the Acer locker systems comes from our commitment to our partners in the education sector. Soon, we hope to roll out the Acer locker initiative to more of our education partners, and replicate and tailor the system for our corporate partners, too. We’re looking forward to walking alongside the Kyalami Schools Group and bringing more technological innovation to the classroom – whether it’s on-premise or online.”
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