To ipad or not to ipad

Hello,
The school currently has about 30 netbooks so an entire class can use them for cross-curriculum activities etc. The college near us held a training morning using ipads for the teachers.

The Head has now asked what type of tablet we should get?

I am very biased against Ipad and would go for a windows or android tablet anyday but I do not want to affect my work on a personal choice. My main fear with the ipads is that I would not be able to centraly control security/software/printers/logins with homefolders etc and that I would be tied into iTunes aswell.

Our system is all windows based on Windows XP/7/server, so my natural instinct would be go for a windows tablet and definutly now we have Windows 8.

What have other people gone for when it comes to Tablets?

We've been looking at devices for pupils to use but haven't really moved forward with the plans as we've been waiting for Windows 8 tablets to be released to see how they compared with the IOS/Android tablets.

From what I've seen so far some of the ASUS transformer sytle tablets with Windows 8 and an atom processor look like the way to go at the moment but I'll hold fire until reviews start to appear confirming the pricing and battery life.

Asus Vivo Tab review | Tablets Reviews | TechRadar

Here's My 2ps worth

iPads are great - I have one. Android is getting better all the time, my wife has a Galaxy S3 and is turning into a geek. However for use in a school a tablet need to be easily manageable, have direct access to shared folders, and connect to printers easily.

So I'm afraid for us Window 8 is the only option, however they will have to be the pro version; RT cannot join a Domain and so cannot be managed easily.

Sean

I dont see the point really in tablets, windows 8 will go on AD at least. If price is an issue with them then androids are fine.

iPad blows the androids out of the water in a school environment.

So easy to manage and setup.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zag

iPad blows the androids out of the water in a school environment.

So easy to manage and setup.

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Android 4.2 has multi user capabilities, policies distributed by Googls apps and Nexus 7 costs half that of an ipad. It hardly blows android out of the water.

@zag, thanks for the input, so to continue what you are saying, could I say Windows 8 tablet will blow ipad out of the water in a school environment then? or are you ipad all the way?

can you do the things I asked for in the Post#1 with an ipad? (centraly control security/software/printers/logins with homefolders etc) or do you use them in a different way? say just for internet research maybe...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JAB1a

@zag, thanks for the input, so to continue what you are saying, could I say Windows 8 tablet will blow ipad out of the water in a school environment then? or are you ipad all the way?

can you do the things I asked for in the Post#1 with an ipad? (centraly control security/software/printers/logins with homefolders etc) or do you use them in a different way? say just for internet research maybe...

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No idea about windows 8, the last RC I tested was awful but I only tried it on my desktop so maybe not the best use scenario.

We use Ipads for students and staff totally differently, they are the next generation so try not to think of them as replacements for windows devices and the old ways of doing things.

You don't need printers really or to control the security, or logins, they skip the need for it. Thats why we found them so good.

Basically its a different way of working, but the teachers and staff in our school have taken to it like a duck to water.

EDIT: Just to say I felt exactly the same before i tested the devices and had the same questions. But once you use them, its a totally refreshing experience.

I know a place where they have been told that they are getting ipads. Anyway its the exact opposite. Cant easily get to file shares needs webdav. Cant print anything easily without complicated modification. For their setup they had no accountability for peoples actions online eg using filters because the proxy used active directory login and ntlm is not supported by apple properly. If you put the username and password in the network settings it works for safari but nothing else eg itunes etc can use those proxy settings. In an infrastructure with windows involved using it in the same way is nearly impossible. I beleive you can link 5 devices to itunes but then you have to manage those accounts and you have an issues with installing the same software on 5 devices (Illegal or not illegal?) Remember you only bought it once.

Just one additional thing - I can say that I have seen some fabulous things on ipads. Just dont expect them to drop in to your exising infrastructure.

We use iPads at my school for Teachers and Students. I can tell you from first hand experience that if you use a proxy server then using the Apple 'Push' function won't work, as there is no option in OSX Server to bypass local addresses as in Windows when entering a proxy server address.

So if you change any policies or 'payload' as Apple call it you will have major problems Pushing those changes to the iDevices. Before we moved off our proxy server I used to have to recall all the iDevices, turn the proxy off and then the payload would be pushed from the Mac Mini Server - a right royal PITA if there are 64 devices and only 1 of you!!!

You can control/lockdown certain aspects of an iDevice with Profile Manager but if you wanted something more substantial you will be looking at a more robust MDM solution. As someone else mentioned above there is no Securus type app you can put on the iDevices so if kids want to Google Image Search 'naughty things' they can and will get away with it unless a teachers sees.

The pros and cons list is long - more cons that pros in my opnion.

Hope this helps.

Sej

Glad I didn't make the decision to purchase our ipads, been nothing but a PITA! (Of course we've been left to try and sort them out...)

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Originally Posted by caffrey

Glad I didn't make the decision to purchase our ipads, been nothing but a PITA! (Of course we've been left to try and sort them out...)

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It's easy for the iPad to be seen as the product for educational needs but the plain and simple response to this is that it is a consumer product being positioned as something educational by a global brand with lots of marketing budget. Don't fall for it - if the app isn't written for your need then the product becomes locked down, it isn't robust enough for class use and it's very deployment makes all previous digital resources used in the school completely redundant (Notebook, ActivInspire, 2Simple, Espresso, Sherston etc). It's a great example of a product being shoehorned into education and everyone has fallen for it as they are cool and work nicely at home. For me, that's where they should stay. They're great for consumption but I think the kids will need more than that.

I'd stick with Windows morning, noon and night. Far easier to connect to the network, save files, print, IT administration etc. I'd also hold off Windows 8 until SP1 rolls along unless you want bugs too.

For products, robust convertible netbooks work well for Primary - see this one: Classmate 2S which is a good all round spec for £299 on 7 Starter or £359 on 7 Pro. It'll teach them keyboard skills as well as allowing them to be used as tablets for moving outside or into the library or hall. Consider a software product that connects them together to share files and URLs etc (something else you can't do with an iPad either) as then you can start to use them quickly and efficiently. They may actually learn something with them! In Secondary I can't see why a full sized laptop isn't sufficient as it'll give the pupils everything they need.

Just my 2p's worth, hope it helps.
Good luck

We got lumbered with them 47 got delivered and we got left to sort them out, having no previous experience with anything Apple (Tell a lie I had a mac mini at home for a year so I wasn't a total noob)
problems we have / still have include :-

Can't no matter what connect to AD for profile manager, tried everything.
Problems with apps, distribution (how to etc.)
MIS not compatible (E1) The teachers are struggling at the login page, altho I believe theres an update in december to fix this.

Everything on the apple side is convoluted (to me).

Itunes, Apple configurator and profile manager - why not converge them all into one? And i'm still struggling with the correct process of Ipad distribution.
What I ended up doing was powering on each ipad, updating it, giving it a name then registering it with profile manager. Then I would go into profile manager and setup each ipad individually for exchange etc (as I couldn't get active directory working)
But now i'm struggling with app deployment and the correct way to go about it (seems like there's no proper way yet at all). We were forced into getting them out ready for half term for (I kid you not for a morale boost for staff...)
currently to distro an app im doing this :-

Download app to test Ipad, connect to itunes on the server via usb, find the ipa, import into profile manager and push out to devices, why can't this be easier?

The other frustrating thing with my experiments into app distribution is you can push an app out using profile manager but the end user gets the choice whether to install it or not - so whats the point in the management then?

Profile Manager is also missing adding an Itunes account for all devices, users are getting account password prompts when I push out apps.

I've no idea what i'm doing and frustrated with it all, if it was windows I'd have no problem, but i'm getting made to look useless as I can't support the ipads properly at all!

Bit of a rant, so sorry ;p

Why are you trying to manage the apps?

Why not let users do this themselves?

The only thing we install and setup is Sims Emerge.