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White Paper citrix.com/education 1 citrix.com/education Elevate productivity and improve outcomes with innovative learning spaces Virtualizing and redesigning labs and classrooms for better engagement and reduced IT costs

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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currently house vastly expensive, outdated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

3

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

5

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

1015/PDF

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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