dcwhitworth Posted November 6, 2014 Posted November 6, 2014 Can anyone help me out please. I'm after some 'awkward' questions to ask about Google Apps and Chromebooks. I want to be able to uncover issues that people have had with them and need some good questions to probe this. I'm not really interested in going to see a demo where people claim its all sunshine and flowers, because we know IT isn't like that, and the sooner we identify likely issues the better. So - what questions would you not like to be asked about your setup ? ;-)
robjduk Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 (edited) I feel you still have your Windows/OSX IT hat on where you are wary of things to good to be true and 2 years ago I was the same. You wont like it but I have over 200 Chromebooks and... well..... its all sunshine and flowers. No poxy updates, incorrect shutdowns, cant find my work etc..... It just works perfectly. Only issues I have ever had... -I had a minor problem once where they wouldn't enrol but turns out my internet filtering policy was blocking something they needed. -One update allowed students to change from qwerty layout to DV however this is easily remedied and believe an update has fixed this now. -Sometimes if you tell them not to update past a certain version, they seem to ignore this but never caused me huge issues. Teachers love them because they work, students love them because they can get their work anywhere, ICT teachers love them because they teach cloud computing easier now, SLT love them because they are cheap and I get 0 complaints..... that's ZERO and yes I check, about 90% of them are used daily. Very interested to hear if you get other experiences from places who are not as happy as me but I propose a test. Take your blood pressure now or on an average day and then again a couple of months after deploying Chromebooks and notice the difference. Edited November 7, 2014 by robjduk
fiza Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 @robjduk - Is your school completely Google? Is your admin side using GMail and calendar etc.
robjduk Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 No. Our admin is still Windows, mostly due to reliance on SIMS and have not jumped to gmail as some higher ups are a little weary of change (an annoyance but hey). Sadly I don't find my admin staff the best bunch when it comes to changing anything so im working on classrooms at the moment. Our google use is more aimed at students however since classroom has launched, more seem to be embracing it. Rather than I have in the past, I'm not pushing google as the students are doing my work for me. They share homework with staff (who claim never to have heard about this before), who come to me and ask how to open it. Even the most hardened tech holdout says "oh that's easy enough" and walks off.
fiza Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 @robjduk - Does this mean that staff have 2 email addresses then? 1 for GAFE and 1 for the "official" school admin side? We have our sch.uk domain and have staffmail through LGFL, we have created a new domain for GAFE so are at that crossroads - do we jump completely to Google for everything or keep the "official" email side with sch.uk and the teaching side with google?
robjduk Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 We have the same domain so staff only have one email address. They sign into GAFE via their normal school email address and password which is automatically synced.
fiza Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 @robjduk - Sorry being thick here but doesn't that mean that all staff use Gmail? I am only talking about the email side not asking if your admin staff use google apps for day to day working.
robjduk Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 No we do not use gmail. As long as you don't enable it and do not route your traffic to google, you can keep your emails running how you want them. We use onsite exchange.
fiza Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 No we do not use gmail. As long as you don't enable it and do not route your traffic to google, you can keep your emails running how you want them. We use onsite exchange. Ah.. I see... I guess all your students have their existing email addresses on your exchange server too? Ours didn't have their own addresses on our sch.uk domain hence we had to create a new google domain. @dcwhitworth - sorry for temporarily hijacking your thread.
dcwhitworth Posted November 7, 2014 Author Posted November 7, 2014 Thanks for the comments guys, it's all useful input. I'm not wary of things too good to be true, well Ok I am, but I'm not looking to poke holes in Google Apps, just get a handle on what we might be facing. My major concern is that we already have an underutilised Office 365 tenancy that will in fact do everything that is being claimed for Google, so I'm torn what to do. Do I stick to my guns and say we should stick to 365 and it's silly to change or go stuff it and give them whatever they want.
robjduk Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 it may have changed now but when I tested 365 for education out I found it to be a pain in the arse. They seemed to go "here is a sharepoint, knock yourself out". Maybe I missed something but even getting word online up like you can with an outlook account was a faff.
fiza Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 Both Office365 and GAFE can be had for free so why not set up a test domain for GAFE and give it a go? As you already have Office365 you can then compare both side by side.
rdk Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 When I tested a Chromebook a few weeks back (we are fully GAFE) I had issues getting offline mode working correctly, so maybe test that.
rickjames Posted November 12, 2014 Posted November 12, 2014 Also highjacking, soz/double soz if I sound like a moron We've a Chromebook we're trialing out which we intend to give out to our caretakers for odds and sods, general web browsing/view a file or two. We're a Windows school so is integrating it with active directory using GADS a true ballache? I was in the middle of watching some tutorial before having to run around doing other stuff. Also you can't do much with network shares and rely solely on Google Drive, correct? Might be problematic.
robjduk Posted November 12, 2014 Posted November 12, 2014 Give a few Chromebooks to staff to use in a lesson and see what happens. We are currently running local storage and google side by side and I am trying to get across the point of google is unlimited, available anywhere and on any device with minimum upkeep. If I can get the SMT backing I hope for I see no reason to have more than a little limited on site storage in a few years.
rickjames Posted November 12, 2014 Posted November 12, 2014 We don't plan on giving any to teaching staff until we're done playing around with this one. Also subject teachers are always using software specific to what they're doing.
ITBadger Posted November 12, 2014 Posted November 12, 2014 If you already have shared iPads then i've found that recent changes to diversify into individual apps for Slides / Sheets / Docs etc rather than accessing everything through the Drive app has proven to be confusing for students. Editing of files using Chrome on the iPad has also changed recently and now seems to be disabled. I was asked to support a class yesterday using a mixed economy of laptops and iPads and those with iPads were really struggling. I'd not be confident at the moment recommending Google Apps using shared iPads, although 1-2-1 works fine for me. From this perspective the goalposts seem to have moved quite often in recent months. I still love GAFE though, and definitely see it as a big step forward, especially since the launch of Classroom.
dastrix Posted November 12, 2014 Posted November 12, 2014 Hi Rick If you want Google to work you have to take your network hat off, and realise that change is needed. We run both Windows network and the Google side by side however most departments are not trying to use the Google stuff and are finding to a lot easier. Collaboration is second to nothing, chromebooks do just work, only issues we have had are broken screens. Any questions feel free.
Zezima Posted November 12, 2014 Posted November 12, 2014 (edited) We are a school which has recently "Gone Google" We have had chromebooks in the school for just over a year now and I have 50/50 mixed feelings abotu these little devices... Up until september we only had 30-50 chromebooks in school and all went swimmingly... We thought chromebooks were amazing and they really WERE all sunshine and flowers... However, since september we have had a few problems and struggled to resolve!! we are constantly have google drive connection issues with all the chromebooks, Support from google has been good but not helped us get any closer to solving. Also, we have found it difficult to find replacement parts such as keys/screens.... When these devices work... they REALLY work perfectly and life is so much easier... But, I feel like Chrome OS and chromebooks in general have little support, so you do find yourself a little lost when you run into issues... as troubleshooting can be awkward. Ive also found that people now EXPECT the chromebooks to run perfectly every time. People get use to chromebooks being fast boot-up/browsing... So be prepared to have people coming up to you saying "Ive waited at least a minute and its still not loading!" -.- Edited November 12, 2014 by Zezima 1
rickjames Posted November 13, 2014 Posted November 13, 2014 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we kind of have liftoff. Synced to Google Apps OK with the exception of pupils because they don't have a mail attribute. GAPS set up and after a password change can log into the Chromebook in front of me. Onwards to more stuff.
dhicks Posted November 13, 2014 Posted November 13, 2014 If you want Google to work you have to take your network hat off, and realise that change is needed. I agree (me and @rickjames work at the same school, by the way), but we have to come up with some kind of transition plan to move away from Windows workstations on a domain with user areas and shared drives to Google Apps. Our plan is to have some way of syncing each user's Documents folder with their Google Drive account, so that any file they have in their Documents is also available from Google Drive (and, hopefully, from Office 365, too). If there isn't a reasonably-priced service that does this already then I'll look at writing some kind of script that does it, but a pre-done solution would be handy, if you know of one.
robjduk Posted November 13, 2014 Posted November 13, 2014 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we kind of have liftoff. Synced to Google Apps OK with the exception of pupils because they don't have a mail attribute. GAPS set up and after a password change can log into the Chromebook in front of me. Onwards to more stuff. that's pretty much it. Now just sit back and take the praise in! The best part will come when you make your next group policy and wonder why everything has to be such a pain.
machin05 Posted November 14, 2014 Posted November 14, 2014 @robjduk What are you using for web filtering on the Chromebooks? We're starting to look into chromebooks as we're fully Googled up and want to start nudging people more into Google Drive and Classroom etc. We have an onsite Smoothwall which authenticates via AD on the windows machines. How could this be translated onto the Chromebooks. Would a capture portal be the best option? How does that work with logging in, system updates and extension roll-outs etc?
robjduk Posted November 14, 2014 Posted November 14, 2014 We have lightspeed here. All users get our basic student, year 7-11 however if they are blocked they can sign in on the blocked screen and authenticate via their AD credentials. This stops after 15 minutes of inactivity so the next user is safe. I have a lot of sixth form using them and little to no complaints from them so far.
machin05 Posted November 14, 2014 Posted November 14, 2014 So you don't have individual tracking/logging/filtering from the off?
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