6 years into iPad 1:1 - Suggest some Windows 1:1 alternatives!

[PotNoodleTech]

Are these iOS apps or are you using Safari?

 

Yeh safari works fine, asks for user/pass. IOS apps on the other hand appear to have no idea what GDPR is.

[Brimstone]

Yeh safari works fine, asks for user/pass. IOS apps on the other hand appear to have no idea what GDPR is.

This is down to the way Google have written this app, there are hundreds of other apps that house student data, content and do file sharing that once you sign out of ask you for a sign in again before you can access the account. Or they have an account timeout.

 

I've got at least 3 iOS Apps that I use my Google account with and work fine.

[elsiegee40]

Thanks for the answers so far, and I appreciate opinions come into this. More directly put:

 

I don't need any advice on the benefits/faults of iPads, we have 1700, have used 2 MDM's in that time and know the restrictions and problems with them in our use.

 

I like the idea of Chromebooks, but unless we start afresh, don't want to run/maintain 3 separate streams of device;

 

Therefore, I'd love to hear from anyone who's run a Windows 1:1 scheme, especially with the newer Windows 10 devices.

 

Sorry If I wasn't as clear as I could have been!

I have quoted @Andycat as this is the topic of the thread...

 

Please do not continue other discussions here

 

Back on topic please

[mjk]

I like the idea of Chromebooks, but unless we start afresh, don't want to run/maintain 3 separate streams of device;

 

I understand that you're not keen on this but it is worth more consideration because your teachers already have experience with touch screen tablet applications and many of these will run on Chromebooks - so don't think of it as a third stream of device, rather than a natural extension of your ipads; your retraining costs will be lower, your teachers will be happier and you will do better for your students.

 

Also consider that there are very few schools that run 1:1 with windows and there is a reason for this: it's horrifically costly to do and the advantages are minimal compared the the cost and effort you'd need to put into setting it all up. If students get a problem with their chromebook, they re-image it themselves - you don't have to fix software issues. Getting windows into this state with 1700 machines is going to be a LOT harder than it was with ipads. I certainly wouldn't move my 1800 chromebooks to windows unless I had at least one more technician on our payroll and even then the machines would be locked down to within an inch of their lives meaning they wouldn't be any more useful than a chromebook, just a lot more expensive.

[richmackie]

My daughter's school run a Chromebook 1:1 scheme and it works really well, whereas there's another school I know well that use Windows for a similar scheme and all the techies do is fix laptop issues. You can (I believe) link them to O365 and manage them that way, but you still have to install a major update twice a year. You can sync GSuite with AD so the users don't have extra usernames and passwords to remember, and printing shouldn't be difficult to set up, especially if you have Papercut.

 

Out of curiosity, do you use any monitoring software on the iPads?

[Andycat]

My daughter's school run a Chromebook 1:1 scheme and it works really well, whereas there's another school I know well that use Windows for a similar scheme and all the techies do is fix laptop issues. You can (I believe) link them to O365 and manage them that way, but you still have to install a major update twice a year. You can sync GSuite with AD so the users don't have extra usernames and passwords to remember, and printing shouldn't be difficult to set up, especially if you have Papercut.

 

Out of curiosity, do you use any monitoring software on the iPads?

 

Yes, they're managed by InTune and forced through Smoothwall too.

[psydii]

I've run small scale 1:1 for years.

 

We recently pivoted away from iPad "because the kids need a keyboard to get work done". We are also heavily invested in the Microsoft stack, so Chromebook/Google Apps were not really an option.

 

The Windows 10 netbooks are/were too under-resourced. They have caused far far more load on the IT Support team than iPads ever did. We've gotten over that now with 1709/1803 and a USB thumb drive to re-build/refresh. However if we'd had more than a couple of hundred of devices deployed, or if our 1:1 programme had been tightly integrated into the curriculum, it would have been a disaster.

 

However now that we have gotten the Windows netbooks reliable we see their use increasing to levels not seen since the iPad programme was new (and that was supported at the time by someone who became an ADE).

 

Windows devices need at least 4Gb RAM and 128Gb storage. OneDrive needs to be able to seamlessly manage its cached content to maintain enough working space for OS and Software Updates. Until then, iOS or ChromeBook are the only technically viable option for rolling out to 1000's of users, in my opinion.

 

I should say that we had many complaints and disappointed teachers and staff when we stopped handing out iPads. They are so different to laptops that their most effective use cases are just not served by the ChromeBook/Windows Laptop form factor. Finally in my opinion the hybrid devices are too compromised at the price point to be considered.

 

Sidebar: We still have a lot of iPad trolleys. These are used much more heavily than our shared laptop trolleys.

[mjk]

Finally in my opinion the hybrid devices are too compromised at the price point to be considered.

 

Just for reference; the 4GB Dell 3189 is about £240 ex and I believe the Lenovo e300 is around £270

They don't have the stylus or backwards facing camera like the 5120 or Lenovo e500 which are more expensive (around £310 ea)

[localzuk]

Also consider that there are very few schools that run 1:1 with windows and there is a reason for this: it's horrifically costly to do and the advantages are minimal compared the the cost and effort you'd need to put into setting it all up. If students get a problem with their chromebook, they re-image it themselves - you don't have to fix software issues. Getting windows into this state with 1700 machines is going to be a LOT harder than it was with ipads. I certainly wouldn't move my 1800 chromebooks to windows unless I had at least one more technician on our payroll and even then the machines would be locked down to within an inch of their lives meaning they wouldn't be any more useful than a chromebook, just a lot more expensive.

Thing is, that's not the case with modern Windows devices - you can fully manage Windows 10 with InTune and AutoPilot - so including the "users can reimage the device themselves" part of it can be done with a £200 device with Windows on it. It isn't that horrifically expensive, if you're expecting around the same level of functionality from the devices as a Chromebook or iPad - ie. you're not furnishing everyone with an i5.

[mthomas08]

More than welcome to drop me a PM.

 

We had a scheme for 5 years and 4/5 was a Windows based device. It was a mix of cheap as chips netbooks to more pricier ones.

 

Cheap devices are fine if covering the basics - word/internet. The second you want to treat it like a PC, that's where you look at higher spec machines. Up to £250 each depending on what you go for.

 

One year we attempted android tablets which generally were more reliable but the sheer damages on charging ports/smashed screens and the limited Apps available.. we didn't go there again. We considered iPads but the cost increase even on educating pricing at the time was far too high. We included extended warranty and insurance on ours.. so we did our best to cut the costs..

 

Our schemes are all but stopped, we decided to cut down costs to IT, remove any Parent problems etc and go back to basics : PCs.

[mthomas08]

With the right tools and infastructure in place...

 

Give an unboxed iPad to a student, get them to activate it, auth to AD and auto enrol into you MDM via DEP takes about the same time.

 

Just done a deployment of 1000 with 1 other tech took 2.5 days, touched about 3 iPads myself.

 

Curious to know, how much each iPad cost? and what age range and type of behaviour are the students? Assuming all the staff also have an ability to link up to their projectors? Was there also the 'infrastructure' cost?

[PrimaryNetMan]

Just for reference; the 4GB Dell 3189 is about £240 ex and I believe the Lenovo e300 is around £270

They don't have the stylus or backwards facing camera like the 5120 or Lenovo e500 which are more expensive (around £310 ea)

 

300e are around £240 / 500e £280 plus device licence cost. Thats individual cost, dare say edu discount will be available for larger purchases.

[mjk]

Thing is, that's not the case with modern Windows devices - you can fully manage Windows 10 with InTune and AutoPilot - so including the "users can reimage the device themselves" part of it can be done with a £200 device with Windows on it. It isn't that horrifically expensive, if you're expecting around the same level of functionality from the devices as a Chromebook or iPad - ie. you're not furnishing everyone with an i5.

 

It's good that windows is catching up, but I suspect they will still be a few years behind the curve. Do you still need to deal with windows version updates , drivers, patches and stuff? I literally do nothing at all about that sort of thing with chromebooks and google takes care of all of it.

 

editL: Also I wanted to add that the cost is going to be higher for the windows device. Take the new Lenovo 300e: The Chrome version is 4GB/32GB eMMC on ARM, yet the windows 300e is 8GB/128GB SSD on pentium - its bound to come in at a higher cost for similar functionality and the same basic machine. I don't think windows have got there just yet. Maybe in a few years time.

https://hothardware.com/news/lenovo-100e-300e-500e-thinkpad-11e-mil-spec-windows-laptops-chromebooks-education

Edited May 14, 2018 by mjk