Which devices for 9/10 yr olds

[TraineeGeek]

Hi Folks,

every year we purchase devices for our Yr5's, they then pay a little every term and own the device after 2 years. This year it appears Net-books aren't as popular (judging by availability). So I was wondering what people are using. We use Google Apps but don't really want to use Chrome books. We have the office suite available via 2X/Citrix but I find this a pain to use on the iPad. There doesn't seem to be central management for Android devices. Essentailly lots of pros and cons for each device and no obvious winner. Is the MS tablet robust enough for 9/10 yr olds? What does everyone think?

Thanks

Darren

[fiza]

Are you talking about the MS Surface RT? We have just taken delivery of 12 of these and although good for the purposes we bought them for (staff use) I wouldnt give them to students to use. I am guessing you joined your netbooks to the network. Cant do that with Surface RT devices. You can map drives (but then you need to authenticate).

 

How would you plan to use them?

[TraineeGeek]

Hi, yes I did mean MS surface RT and yes I was contemplating management through AD but from what you've said that doesn't sound possible. Our Year 5s would be using them mainly for creating Google Docs or creating MS Office docs. Maybe making short movies or audio recordings. I'm leaning towards iPads but I think the pupil will find them frustrating at first, certainly when creating a PowerPoint.

[StevieM]

Have you had a look at the Acer W510? It's a convertible tablet that runs full Windows 8 (Home or Pro). 9 hours battery life in the tablet doubling up to 18 when docked into the keyboard. Micro HDMI out, Micro USB and Micro SD in the tablet, with a full size USB 2.0 in the keyboard dock. I've got one I'm playing about with at the moment. Not tried connecting it to the domain or anything yet, but it could easily be managed through AD. One shortcoming I have discovered is that it doesn't use Direct X, so one of the Animation packages I was looking at using won't run. Edited October 7, 2013 by StevieM

[fiza]

afaik you cannot manage them as they are standalone devices.

What we did :

 

Create a standard user on the device (no admin rights). Allow network discovery so that they could pick up the printer. The staff user would then run a small script to authenticate so that they could get their mapped drive.

 

See the thread I started here : http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/123994-manage-surface-rt-devices.html

[dhicks]

There doesn't seem to be central management for Android devices.

 

I got the impression Meraki's MDM solution could manage Android devices, including the Kindle Fire. The new Tesco tablet seems to be getting reasonable reviews, and seems to have some decent child-friendly accesories (padded case, robust headphones) to go with it.

[TraineeGeek]

Thanks everyone...food for thought.

[3s-gtech]

There are a raft of new Windows 8.1 tablets coming running Bay Trail Atom processors - these should run rings around older models (things like OOE, quad core, more common x86-64 support) and the prices are looking keen. I'll be keeping an eye on these for potential mobile teacher devices, as you'll have full domain support.

[CyberNerd]

I just wonder, why no chromebooks?

I'm quite new to chromebooks having set my first one up this week. It auto enrolled once wifi was setup, it is managed through policies and ran citrix, installed all the apps itself... it just worked out the box with minimal fuss. Seems an obvious choice for a google domain.

[dave.81]

Have to say since we bought 27 Chromebooks we've been really impressed, and they are in use by our Junior School (4-11 year olds). I would be tempted to suggest them to our senior school but am leaning towards iPads for them.

[tomfarrow]

9-10 year olds doesn't describe enough sadly.

Are we talking about reasonably tech-savvy 9-10 year olds? Is there a specific need of the device capabilities? What is the goal of 1:1 devices?