Looking for Classroom Management Software Recommendation

[acaylor]

Hello, we are currently an Impero school district. We have had a huge problem with Impero working correctly this entire school year. I'm ready to drop it and move to something else. Does anyone have any recommendations to go to? What is the closest to that feature set?

 

Thanks!

 

Adam Caylor

Technology Director

USD 365

[speckytecky]

Impero is a superb product - when it's working correctly. Why on earth aren't the Impero team getting to grips with this as there are just too many complaint on this Forum about the product?

[Pashers]

Have you looked at ABTutor as an alternative?

From memory it's a one off cost of about £500 per teaching machine. So it's the same cost for a lab of 20 as a lab of 100 if you have one teaching machine.

[acaylor]

Impero is a superb product - when it's working correctly. Why on earth aren't the Impero team getting to grips with this as there are just too many complaint on this Forum about the product?

 

I talked to a sales person with a competing classroom management product and they said they have had a ton of calls about replacing impero over the past month or so. There is only so long you can pay for something and it not work before you look for a replacement.

 

I agree, when it's working it's spectacular.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Have you looked at ABTutor as an alternative?

From memory it's a one off cost of about £500 per teaching machine. So it's the same cost for a lab of 20 as a lab of 100 if you have one teaching machine.

 

Do you use it? Are you happy with it? What other classroom management products have you tried?

 

It seems very cheap.

[Pashers]

I've used it and was very happy (more importantly, the teachers were happy), you can download a trial. Very easy to use and I remember very cheap compared to others. You can set policies etc for the teachers, or they can create their own. I think the main thing that I liked was the one off fee. There is an annual option however.

 

I can't compare it to any others unfortunately, so maybe someone else has used Impero and ABTutor. Also must admit, the teachers used a small percentage of its capabilities. Not sure if they did the report/polling or used many of the policies (probably just Internet blocking and locking screens)

[grdrager]

It's painful but I am in the same boat. Looking at NetSupport as well as some Chromebook specific ones like GoGuardian since that is where the growth is for us.

[Norphy]

Have you looked at ABTutor as an alternative?

From memory it's a one off cost of about £500 per teaching machine. So it's the same cost for a lab of 20 as a lab of 100 if you have one teaching machine.

 

ABTutor is a great product but it has a small subset of Impero's features. If all you want is classroom management, it's great but if you need the other features too...

 

Fwiw, my last school bought an ABTutor site licence for about £3k. Considering that we either had those extra Impero features taken care of or didn't care about them and considering Impero's refusal to sell a classroom management only product, it was a no-brainier.

[Techdw]

STAY AWAY from Impero, waste of money.

We have had a huge problems with Impero working correctly since June 2015 last year.

 

Support isn't great, never get hold of anyone, yet they are quick enough to pick the phone up during the renewal period.

 

Hearing good things about AB Tutor.

[acaylor]

I've used it and was very happy (more importantly, the teachers were happy), you can download a trial. Very easy to use and I remember very cheap compared to others. You can set policies etc for the teachers, or they can create their own. I think the main thing that I liked was the one off fee. There is an annual option however.

 

I can't compare it to any others unfortunately, so maybe someone else has used Impero and ABTutor. Also must admit, the teachers used a small percentage of its capabilities. Not sure if they did the report/polling or used many of the policies (probably just Internet blocking and locking screens)

 

That mostly of what our teachers used impero for. Monitoring screens and blocking the internet. I'm looking at some for classroom monitoring and then a separate solution for web filtering. I'm looking pretty hard at iBoss right now.

[acaylor]

It's painful but I am in the same boat. Looking at NetSupport as well as some Chromebook specific ones like GoGuardian since that is where the growth is for us.

 

I'm looking at NetSupport as well. Are you considering the School, Manager or DNA option? If we just go with School I can combine that with a better web filter and be in pretty good shape. However, I'm not really sure of the differences between School and Manager. We used Impero as a tech tool quite a bit.

 

We are %100 windows devices here.

 

Thanks for the input!!

[acaylor]

ABTutor is a great product but it has a small subset of Impero's features. If all you want is classroom management, it's great but if you need the other features too...

 

Fwiw, my last school bought an ABTutor site licence for about £3k. Considering that we either had those extra Impero features taken care of or didn't care about them and considering Impero's refusal to sell a classroom management only product, it was a no-brainier.

 

Can you talk about those other features? All we have ever had was Impero. What is the difference in ABTutor and the Impero features? What other programs had those features take care of?

 

Sorry for all the questions, we've never had anything but Impero.

 

Thanks!

[acaylor]

STAY AWAY from Impero, waste of money.

We have had a huge problems with Impero working correctly since June 2015 last year.

 

Support isn't great, never get hold of anyone, yet they are quick enough to pick the phone up during the renewal period.

 

Hearing good things about AB Tutor.

 

It's pretty much between netsupport and AB Tutor at this point.

 

Summer of 2015 was about the time ours went down the drain as well. I wonder what happened......

[Steve21]

It's pretty much between netsupport and AB Tutor at this point.

 

Summer of 2015 was about the time ours went down the drain as well. I wonder what happened......

 

Basically someone worked out a way to "hack" the client so they could take control, and in an attempt to fix stuff they broke everything. Sounds like it's never picked up again since from the amount of threads.

 

Personally I've been looking at ABTutor due to the pricing, as we only want remote viewing/blocking etc. All the other stuff we don't need so seems a waste to pay for, but gonna get in a few trials of AB/NetSupport etc

 

Steve

[acaylor]

Basically someone worked out a way to "hack" the client so they could take control, and in an attempt to fix stuff they broke everything. Sounds like it's never picked up again since from the amount of threads.

 

Personally I've been looking at ABTutor due to the pricing, as we only want remote viewing/blocking etc. All the other stuff we don't need so seems a waste to pay for, but gonna get in a few trials of AB/NetSupport etc

 

Steve

 

Thanks Steve, I appreciate the input. I'm also considering Netop. It's the most competitively priced of all of them.

[Steve21]

Thanks Steve, I appreciate the input. I'm also considering Netop. It's the most competitively priced of all of them.

 

Really? We've always had it stupidly expensive quotes come back when we looked at it in other schools.

 

Even now Netop Pricing | Classroom and Computer Lab Management Software it's base price is $973 per teacher!

 

Steve

[daveyboy]

Have you looked at LanSchool ?

 

Great for us......

[grdrager]

I'm looking at NetSupport as well. Are you considering the School, Manager or DNA option? If we just go with School I can combine that with a better web filter and be in pretty good shape. However, I'm not really sure of the differences between School and Manager. We used Impero as a tech tool quite a bit.

 

We are %100 windows devices here.

 

Thanks for the input!!

 

I would say for us 70% of Impero usage is by the tech department, 30% classroom for us. The classroom/lab use is shrinking because as we are moving largely to Chromebooks and Impero's Chromebook client is not working for us. So probably Netsupport Manager.

[acaylor]

Have you looked at LanSchool ?

 

Great for us......

 

I am calling them as we speak

 

Thanks for the idea! I forgot about them.

[acaylor]

I would say for us 70% of Impero usage is by the tech department, 30% classroom for us. The classroom/lab use is shrinking because as we are moving largely to Chromebooks and Impero's Chromebook client is not working for us. So probably Netsupport Manager.

 

I can't believe I typed %100.

 

I'm an idiot

 

As of right now I'm leaning toward Netsupport School or (if we can swing it) DNA

[Pashers]

The ABTutor features (form what I can remember, as I'm currently moving from working in a university to a school as a network manager).

Monitor screens, share student/teacher screens.

Policies - block internet, applications, restrict programs,

Questionnaires/polling

Messages/chat

Lock screen

Power up and shutdown machines

Oh and you can run commands/programs

[Edu-IT]

How does NetSupport compare in pricing to LanSchool?

[acaylor]

The ABTutor features (form what I can remember, as I'm currently moving from working in a university to a school as a network manager).

Monitor screens, share student/teacher screens.

Policies - block internet, applications, restrict programs,

Questionnaires/polling

Messages/chat

Lock screen

Power up and shutdown machines

Oh and you can run commands/programs

 

That all sounds pretty good. They seem to have a US contact number. I've sent an email and haven't heard back yet. Hopefully they contact me soon.

 

Thanks for your input!

[acaylor]

How does NetSupport compare in pricing to LanSchool?

 

They are actually quite similar upfront. I think the renewal fees are where the difference come it. lanschool seems to be less, but the feature set is different.

 

There is a reason to all things after-all

[MikeGreen]

We currently use RMTutor but a bit of an ageing version, I have just got a price for impero as I only had heard good things (until looking on the forum). We are also going to be looking at lanschool, ABTutor, NetSupport and Faronics Insight.

[acaylor]

We currently use RMTutor but a bit of an ageing version, I have just got a price for impero as I only had heard good things (until looking on the forum). We are also going to be looking at lanschool, ABTutor, NetSupport and Faronics Insight.

 

Now this is great! I've never heard of RMTutor or Faronics Insight.

 

Thanks!