1:1 Ipads, Managed Apple IDs. yes or no?

[Bev]

We are about to launch a 1:1 deployment into Year 5, the ipads are all ordered and we have an Apple School Manager and will be using Lightspeed.

 

I am trying to decide what to do about Apple Ids. I am happy for the parents to use a personal Apple ID to purchase Apps, any that school provide will be pushed out without an AppleId.

However, for iCloud, I am thinking we should use Managed Apple IDs, my thoughts are that we want them to be easily able to share work with teachers / classmates etc, and knowing every appleid is in a standard format will be useful. We can group them into classes, and I assume there are benefits for the Classroom App but I haven't investigated that yet.

 

Disadvantages; Some restrictions, App store/ Itunes store is ok, as parents will set up an AppleId for that. I can allow Messages and Facetime (presumably outside of school hours?), Find my IPhone concerns me but I assume Lightspeed will offer an alternative? I know Meraki does. Are there any other disadvantages before I set them up?

 

Restricted services and features

Some Apple services and features are disabled for Managed Apple IDs, such as:

 

App Store (allow browsing but not purchasing, paid or free)

 

iTunes Store (allow browsing but not purchasing, paid or free)

 

iBooks Store (allow browsing but not purchasing, paid or free)

 

Messages (can be enabled for users in Apple School Manager)

 

FaceTime (can be enabled for users in Apple School Manager)

 

iCloud Keychain (however, keychain items are saved and restored on Shared iPad devices)

 

Find My iPhone

 

Find My Friends

 

iCloud Family

 

iCloud Mail

[mikkydoos]

Do you still need apple ID's with DEP ??

[Bev]

Yes and No

 

I can buy school apps and deploy them without apple ids - this is what we do with our class set of shared iPads.

 

However, the 1:1 ipads will be used in a different way. The kids will be taking them home, so they allowed to buy their own apps, for which they will need an App Store Apple ID which the parents will set up with their bank details, But if we want to use iCloud sharing / Apple Classroom to share work with the teacher then I think they need an AppleID for iCloud (which will be different to the one for the App Store). That what I'm not clear on as we haven't used Apple Classroom / iCloud or even emails on the iPads before but we do want to be able to do all these things now they will have their own devices.

[Brimstone]

Apple Classroom requires no Apple ID, only required if you are using iCloud or Shared iPad....

[PR-UK]

If you start using iTunesU or iBooks you'll need an AppleID.

We're using Apple School Manager in a 1:1 environment and while it was a fiddle to setup (When we did it in September you couldn't email out temporary passwords to more than 6 students at a time so we ended up printing out 1000+ tiny bits of paper and handing them out!) but since then it's been pretty painless. Keep in mind Managed IDs cannot make purchases at all, and they cannot be used with Find my iPhone so your students will be dependant on the content you provide from the MDM and your location tracking will be restricted to whatever your MDM provides.

 

Personally I prefer the struggle of setting up the Managed IDs than relying on personal/parental/school email Apple IDs. Students would forget their passwords or their usernames, parents would be confused when apps were appearing on their own devices.

Edited December 7, 2016 by PR-UK

[Bev]

My understanding is we can use the managed Apple Ids for the iCloud, but they can use a personal Apple ID to make purchases. We will be pushing out school Apps from our MDM but they are allowed to buy their own apps for use at home. (Since they are paying for the iPads it was decided they should be allowed to put games etc on for use at home)

 

Have I got that wrong?

[mikkydoos]

I thought Apple classroom had a login screen for shared ipads.

 

I think in either case you might need both @Bev.

 

TBH do you really want to send them home with the ability to install apps? I'm thinking William Hill, Betfair, etc etc etc. I'd compile a list of approved apps with the staff that aligned with their curriculum topics and push those out via DEP.

 

Then also have an apple id to use icloud so you can track them when they go missing.

[Bev]

Yes, we have asked the parents to pay for the Ipads and part of them agreeing to that was that the kids could install games for use at home. However, they know we can see what Apps are installed and remotely lock/wipe the iPad if we see anything inappropriate. Our kids are 9/10 so I shop we won't get Betfair on there!

[mikkydoos]

Our kids are 9/10 so I shop we won't get Betfair on there!

 

No but the mums, dads, siblings arent though.

 

In any case, I'd go with @PR-UK if it were me.

[RLR]

We decided to use managed apple ID's this year for our new students. It's been a painless process. The only work we now have to do is buy licenses for free apps to assign to the students so they can download them.