iPads and staff

[enjay]

Coaching apps and the like.

Do you know which ones? We used to have Dartfish but never fully used it, and it has fallen by the wayside now. An iPad app to do similar would be interesting...

[sparkeh]

Do you know which ones? We used to have Dartfish but never fully used it, and it has fallen by the wayside now. An iPad app to do similar would be interesting...

Just asked and apparently Coaches Eye is used a lot: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/coachs-eye-instant-video-analysis/id472006138?mt=8

 

Also Skitch is used a lot for annotating pictures of sporty stuff: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/skitch-snap.-mark-up.-send./id490505997?mt=8

[enjay]

Thanks. I'll suggest those to the teachers.

 

Skitch is free, which is even better. English use it, taking a photo of a poem or a student's work and then annotating it. I can see how it could be used in PE too. In fact, I think Skitch is one of the ones we install as standard when you register with the MDM.

[Allie]

*sighs again*

 

You have always been able to revoke an app purchased via VPP managed distribution and pushed via an MDM whether that app is assigned to the teachers Apple ID or the device.

 

Thanks! Sorry for not understanding this, I've only been interested in device assignments so I didn't know! It's an option.

[p858snake]

Thanks. I'll suggest those to the teachers.

 

Skitch is free, which is even better. English use it, taking a photo of a poem or a student's work and then annotating it. I can see how it could be used in PE too. In fact, I think Skitch is one of the ones we install as standard when you register with the MDM.

 

From memory there is a list on the Wiki, also a couple of threads I believe.

[Allie]

Edit: also I agree with your views on restrictions (aside from local admin on PCs). There is no reason for me to be difficult or restrict staff unless it undermines the security of the network. They sign an AUP, it's not up to me to enforce they stick to that by imposing restrictions. Some views on this forum perplex me at times. I work at an independent school though and staff are generally given a fair amount of freedom and trust.

 

Exactly, and I understand not giving local admin on PCs more. For me, the reality is a lot of specialised software needs local admin rights. At the last uni I was at, we had one lab where ALL students who had login permission on the machine got local admin rights. Why? Avid newsroom software won't run properly without it! Insanity, right? Did I LIKE giving students local admin rights? Of course not. But I also didn't lose sleep over it. I had backups, I had version control, I had an imaging server and could re-image a PC on a second's notice if anything seemed at all wrong on it, and in 15 minutes or less it'd be all fixed and ready to go no matter what a student broke (and that was very rare - only twice, and students who did break anything were very apologetic - they both realised what they did wrong the moment it happened, reported it to us, and we re-imaged devices... no big deal).

 

Local admin sometimes means more headaches, but not giving local admin doesn't prevent the worst issues. Cryptolocker can still destroy anything someone can write to, necessitating solid endpoint protection and version control anyway to protect data. Licensing compliance is better handled by asset management software than by simply blocking installs. Policy can still restrict items you want to restrict, even if users have local admin - having local admin need not be all-powerful (though there's very little I restrict, in reality).

 

Staff and students are my partners in this, and ultimately IT is about serving them and making things work better to advance their studies. They're dedicated researchers who are either highly respected (staff) or are paying a lot of money to study and commit years of their life in pursuit of what they're doing. They're not going around deliberately trying to break machines, and they're generally very responsible people. We trust them with everything else on the campus, including things like highly toxic chemicals, incredibly personal research data, and sensitive experiments - why would we lose that trust with IT?

 

I understand that most of you do NOT have that trusted partner relationship with your students, but you certainly do with your staff, I would think? It's fascinating to me how different of a world it is.

[Sheridan]

Exactly, and I understand not giving local admin on PCs more. For me, the reality is a lot of specialised software needs local admin rights. At the last uni I was at, we had one lab where ALL students who had login permission on the machine got local admin rights. Why? Avid newsroom software won't run properly without it! Insanity, right? Did I LIKE giving students local admin rights? Of course not. But I also didn't lose sleep over it. I had backups, I had version control, I had an imaging server and could re-image a PC on a second's notice if anything seemed at all wrong on it, and in 15 minutes or less it'd be all fixed and ready to go no matter what a student broke (and that was very rare - only twice, and students who did break anything were very apologetic - they both realised what they did wrong the moment it happened, reported it to us, and we re-imaged devices... no big deal).

 

Local admin sometimes means more headaches, but not giving local admin doesn't prevent the worst issues. Cryptolocker can still destroy anything someone can write to, necessitating solid endpoint protection and version control anyway to protect data. Licensing compliance is better handled by asset management software than by simply blocking installs. Policy can still restrict items you want to restrict, even if users have local admin - having local admin need not be all-powerful (though there's very little I restrict, in reality).

 

Staff and students are my partners in this, and ultimately IT is about serving them and making things work better to advance their studies. They're dedicated researchers who are either highly respected (staff) or are paying a lot of money to study and commit years of their life in pursuit of what they're doing. They're not going around deliberately trying to break machines, and they're generally very responsible people. We trust them with everything else on the campus, including things like highly toxic chemicals, incredibly personal research data, and sensitive experiments - why would we lose that trust with IT?

 

I understand that most of you do NOT have that trusted partner relationship with your students, but you certainly do with your staff, I would think? It's fascinating to me how different of a world it is.

 

I work in a secondary school - some students will try to break things.That's the way it is. I have to make sure all IT suite and classroom computers are available as much as possible - that means preventing rubbish being installed and settings being changed that don't need to be. In all my years here I've never found an application that required admin rights (permission changes yes, but not specifically admin rights)

[enjay]

I work in a secondary school - some students will try to break things.That's the way it is. I have to make sure all IT suite and classroom computers are available as much as possible - that means preventing rubbish being installed and settings being changed that don't need to be. In all my years here I've never found an application that required admin rights (permission changes yes, but not specifically admin rights)

 

I have encountered one application which required local admin rights. I refused to install it for the reasons you cite re. stability and availability of rooms.

[Allie]

I work in a secondary school - some students will try to break things.That's the way it is. I have to make sure all IT suite and classroom computers are available as much as possible - that means preventing rubbish being installed and settings being changed that don't need to be. In all my years here I've never found an application that required admin rights (permission changes yes, but not specifically admin rights)

 

In our case, the product that required it was a rather old version of Avid ISIS Client Manager (that was the latest that could be used with our ISIS). In theory it didn't require it, but it was the only way to get it running consistently, and Avid support recommended this.

[Sheridan]

In our case, the product that required it was a rather old version of Avid ISIS Client Manager (that was the latest that could be used with our ISIS). In theory it didn't require it, but it was the only way to get it running consistently, and Avid support recommended this.

 

I guess it would be older apps that would be the problem, even then I would opt for 'Run As' and pick an elevated user account to work around it.

[enjay]

I could re-image a PC on a second's notice if anything seemed at all wrong on it, and in 15 minutes or less it'd be all fixed and ready to go

 

We teach 60 minute lessons (and lessons are shorter than that in many schools), which is more like 45 minutes' actual teaching time (5-10 minutes at the start as students file in late, sit down, get bags out, take register, set lesson activity, etc. all while still leaving 5 minutes at the end to set homework and pack up). So, in that environment a PC being down for 25 minutes (10 minutes for the problem to be reported, attended and investigated followed by 15 minute restore) could be a serious problem.

 

They're ... paying a lot of money to study and commit years of their life in pursuit of what they're doing. They're not going around deliberately trying to break machines, and they're generally very responsible people. We trust them with everything else on the campus, including things like highly toxic chemicals, incredibly personal research data, and sensitive experiments - why would we lose that trust with IT?

Another difference between schools and universities!

[Sheridan]

Off topic, but Uni and schools differ quite a lot. A secondary school student who wants to break a pc/tablet etc will do it, a uni student won't (in general) break a device that is helping them!

 

My students have to be here, uni students are there by choice - worlds apart!

[Allie]

Off topic, but Uni and schools differ quite a lot. A secondary school student who wants to break a pc/tablet etc will do it, a uni student won't (in general) break a device that is helping them!

 

My students have to be here, uni students are there by choice - worlds apart!

 

Oh, I agree! I'm not sure how you'd deal with things like the situation I had in a secondary school. But for staff, I'm surprised how different it is. I would have expected the staff relationship to be very similar.

[enjay]

My students have to be here, uni students are there by choice - worlds apart!

 

Some of our students come from a very privileged background (as anyone who knows where I work would expect!), so are used to the "if it breaks, Dad will just buy a new one" mindset. This has a double impact on how some (not all) of them treat school property - either with a general lack of regard and respect because they expect to simply be replaced, or with deliberate intent to damage so it can be replaced with something better.

 

My wife used to work in a school in a much more deprived area and saw the complete opposite. Students who had very little at home looked after the school equipment because they knew it was valuable and it was nicer than anything they might have themselves.

[enjay]

Oh, I agree! I'm not sure how you'd deal with things like the situation I had in a secondary school. But for staff, I'm surprised how different it is. I would have expected the staff relationship to be very similar.

 

As I said before, staff let students use their equipment, and you must therefore ensure the student cannot cause any harm or damage while they have that access.

 

Also, as Sheridan (was it?) said earlier, the priority must be the high availability of equipment, especially where the classroom PC is central to the teaching and learning. We simply cannot afford to risk a PC being unavailable for half a lesson because the teacher (or another teacher who shares the classroom) installed something silly and broke it. In an office environment or a 24/7 uni environment, answers like "we will fix it in a few hours" or "can you do something else for 20 minutes" are acceptable. That would not fly in a secondary school classroom.

[Allie]

As I said before, staff let students use their equipment, and you must therefore ensure the student cannot cause any harm or damage while they have that access.

 

Also, as Sheridan (was it?) said earlier, the priority must be the high availability of equipment, especially where the classroom PC is central to the teaching and learning. We simply cannot afford to risk a PC being unavailable for half a lesson because the teacher (or another teacher who shares the classroom) installed something silly and broke it. In an office environment or a 24/7 uni environment, answers like "we will fix it in a few hours" or "can you do something else for 20 minutes" are acceptable. That would not fly in a secondary school classroom.

 

Doesn't fly in a functioning newsroom either, actually... we actually produced news that went on air, those were mission critical systems. I didn't love even a second of downtime, but it had to be done. That was not my favourite situation at all :/

[Sheridan]

How timely, our first batch of Staff ipads (where staff can use their own Apple id to buy free apps) and Apple have disabled their Apple ID! Not for security reasons, just buying a free book/app results in 'Your Apple ID has been disabled'

 

No help available from Apple, and they can still login and view their Apple ID, so what are they supposed to do now! This is the downside of being at Apple/Google/etc mercy - their support is non existent.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Sheridan

[Blue_Cookeh]

How timely, our first batch of Staff ipads (where staff can use their own Apple id to buy free apps) and Apple have disabled their Apple ID! Not for security reasons, just buying a free book/app results in 'Your Apple ID has been disabled'

 

No help available from Apple, and they can still login and view their Apple ID, so what are they supposed to do now! This is the downside of being at Apple/Google/etc mercy - their support is non existent.

 

You need an Apple Education contact, press your Apple reseller for some support if they're Authorized Apple partners.

[Sheridan]

I can't be bothered with Apple if they're doing this. The affected user is just going to create a new Apple ID!

[Brimstone]

So from your prespective why are you asking teachers to create an Apple ID (I realise they will want one to research apps themselves) when you can deliver apps via device assignment?

 

If your strategy is use Apple ID's then this needs some planning in advance, you would need;

 

Talking to your ASE reseller to get you whitelisted by Apple for 30 days so that end users can create them without your school being blacklisted (you can ask teachers to take the iPad home instead if you wish)

Ensuring users have access to their email account so they can click the verification email from Apple to enable the account.

Users with an existing Apple ID may encounter the odd issue, as this is a new device Apple may ask them for payment details before they can buy anything as the account is not a free one.

 

It's likely the users Apple ID was disabled due to too many attempts to log in with the wrong password, so a strategy on this is vital (I'm not trying to say I told you so here)

 

I've spent lots of days at schools in September helping with deployment days with teachers and students, I wouldn't expect anything less than this from a decent Apple Reseller

[Sheridan]

We use vpp for deployed apps and they use their own for free apps. It's so they can try free ones and paid ones under the vpp are under our control. We did initially just use the vpp account and install ones on request but they weren't happy with that!