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Talk to me about classroom management software...

Oaktech
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Oaktech

Oaktech

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We've basically been given the OK to redo our entire network, which includes sacking-off RM Tutor. I'm not going to leave the teaching staff with no way to control the computers of unruly students.

 

I've heard of Impero, but thats about it... What are my options?

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synaesthesia

synaesthesia

Posted
Posted (edited)

Netsupport, ABTutor, Impero, iTalc

 

We have experience of Impero and iTalc. The latter is free and boy do you know it. We went for Impero as it does classroom management and a hell of a lot more and worth it's weight in gold as a result, but obviously not everything is a one size fits all. Can't remember which of NetSupport or AB RM Tutor is based on. If you need to know anything about Impero feel free to poke me.

Edited by synaesthesia
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Oaktech

Oaktech

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Cheers,

 

We've had a demo of Impero and it seems really good, but I can't just turn round to management and go: "Here, buy this..." I have to give them options, with pros and cons for each! I'll get investigating. I'm getting a list together of people to visit at BETT!

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sonofsanta

sonofsanta

Posted
Posted (edited)

We looked at NetSupport, ABTutor and LanSchool two or three years ago as a project, installed demos in three different rooms, got opinions from teachers etc.

 

NetSupport cost too much & did too much, in that it replicated a lot of functionality we already had in place for monitoring, software deployment, and it had a recurring cost year on year. It'd be the right fit for some, but not for us.

 

ABTutor wasn't overly easy to use and none of the teaching staff got on with it. May have improved now, but we didn't like it back then. We ended the demo run of this one early, in fact.

 

LanSchool ended up being our preferred option, as it did just what we needed it to do and did it well, easy to install and most importantly easy to use. Pricing was excellent and a one-off fee, with no recurring charge, though I know they've changed their pricing recently so I don't know if that holds true. Still, if all you want to do is manage classrooms, this does it very well and is used by a lot of staff here which is as good a recommendation as I can make, if staff make the effort.

 

As a point of interest, we were technically replacing RM Tutor as well - just two or three years after we'd already replaced CC3... point is, staff were used to the capabilities of RM Tutor and were more than happy with LanSchool as a replacement. Well worth looking at IMO.

Edited by sonofsanta
jallsop

jallsop

Posted
Posted
AB Tutor was the last one we used (2012) and that version was fine. Had some nice features for the more tech savvy teachers too.
JB7

JB7

Posted
Posted

Impero is a great tool for your teaching staff and for the IT team.

 

It has features such as live viewing of screens where your IT staff can assist users if they have issues or take immediate control of their screen in order to solve an issue.

We have noticed that this has helped to increase response times within the IT Support department which obviously keeps everyone happy (work mentioning that to the budget holders !!)

 

You can set up permissions for users or certain computers. So for example if you have IT rooms which are bookable or used by different staff you can make the teachers PC in the room able to view the screens just for that room so that they can tailor the PC's to their needs for example limit the class down to certain software or websites or generate quiz's and to do lists to encourage student engagement and check progress

 

We have had a contract with Impero since 2011 (we bought this to replace RM Tutor) and they are a great company who always want to improve their software, for example when we updated to the previous version of impero we found a few bugs and reported these and then in the V4.0.22 release we found they had all been addressed.

 

Could talk for a long time about this product as it really has benefited our academy for both Staff and Students

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DrPerceptron

DrPerceptron

Posted
Posted (edited)

How long have you had 4.0.22 out of interest?

 

Ignoring the issue we have with 4.0.13 (authentication) Impero has been brilliant, I think we're 3 years into a 5 year contract, the software actually works relatively faultlessly in comparison to others, the server/client nature of the software means that you don't have to discover clients each time you load up (NetSupport) and clients are infinitely less likely to just 'vanish' off the network.

 

Not to mention the sheer bulk of additional functions it has - MIMIC scripts are incredibly useful with the notoriously rubbish educational software that doesn't have MSIs and hates any sort of creativity.

Edited by DrPerceptron
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rich_tech

rich_tech

Posted
Posted
This is of interest to me, as I am looking at iTalc at the moment (we used to be impero based a couple of years back, but then went with Dameware then for carrying out our remote support on a one to one basis which is fine for that purpose), but we would like to have the ability back to look at and remote logon a classroom again if possible and iTalc is a bit of a headache to setup so far, in that it lacks ctrl+alt+del function as far as I can see as well as being a bit laborous setting up the computers on it with no auto discovery.
timbo343

timbo343

Posted
Posted
Another vote for impero here. Definately a real bonus to our place. Not just from the classroom management or the IT admin side but the esafety side too.
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Gibson335

Gibson335

Posted
Posted
Does anyone have any stats for how this software is used ?

 

Do Teachers GET it ? or is it just something else that they ignore and don't use ?

 

Every place is likely to be different, and it really depends on what functions the staff want to use. Impero is a decent piece of software, but it's not cheap - you get what you pay for really. It's certainly not difficult to pick up once you've worked your way through the menu tabs.

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DrPerceptron

DrPerceptron

Posted
Posted (edited)
Every place is likely to be different, and it really depends on what functions the staff want to use. Impero is a decent piece of software, but it's not cheap - you get what you pay for really. It's certainly not difficult to pick up once you've worked your way through the menu tabs.

 

We have some teachers who use it really well (perhaps a little too well given block lists are shared to the group so you need to remember to turn them off or schedule them), some who just look at what kids are doing, but we installed the software site-wide, so even if no teachers used it, the amount of use it gets from us in IT for support (remote viewing and shared control), software deployment, inventories, power management and all that stuff begins to go quite some way towards being good value.

 

Also worth pointing out, it's one of very few solutions that actually works on OSX and is capable of unlocking machines - arguably a touchy subject, but really useful when a teacher requests immediate support and goes to get a coffee after putting the phone down and won't be back for like 20 minutes for some reason.

 

EDIT: Having to ask Impero for the latest version all the time is a complete ball-ache though.

Edited by DrPerceptron
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Meldrew

Meldrew

Posted
Posted
Does anyone have any stats for how this software is used ?

 

Do Teachers GET it ? or is it just something else that they ignore and don't use ?

 

We purposely have no software like this installed as we'd find teachers would avidly monitor the screen, ignoring the riot/vandalism etc happening 'off screen'.

 

Meldrew

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vyperz

vyperz

Posted
Posted
We switched from Impero to ABTutor. Impero crashed a lot (server side - reset to default regularly !) and the support wasn't great , plus the licence is an annual renewal. ABTutor is a perpetual licence and a lot cheaper. Impero has more functionality , but ABTutor does the job for what we needed.

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