[sims] Teacher App Install Prerequisites

[gh5000]

I've just been given the task of preparing to roll out the SIMS teacher app.

 

If I'm right about what I'm reading in the prerequisites checklist and have read online, I don't think they have thought this through.

 

On the logons, the checklist says teachers must have either an Office 365, Microsoft (Outlook, Hotmail), or Gmail account to login. The way it is worded is I have to choose one of these options and only one. Are the latter two (Microsoft and Gmail) meant to be personal accounts? Or can in place of gmail, an education G Suite login (without Gmail) be used? We don't currently have Office 365 in this school.

 

The other part I don't think they have thought through is how the app will be used. It needs to be installed on an Android tablet, iPad or Windows 10 device right.... well the school doesn't have any tablets. They have Windows 10 computers but the have SIMS on them already.

 

If it's for home use then you are relying on teachers having one of those devices. It just seems to me that something like TascSoftware's PARS would be more suitable & inclusive with a web frontend.

 

Cheers all for the answers.

[RichCowell]

Teacher App is quite poor imho, and the setup was a faff... Not sure re. the accounts, we use O365 so it's not been an issue... There definitely doesn't seem any point in getting it if the teachers aren't using tablets though... The only way it's used here is on iPads, and only in school... PARS does sound like it'd be a better fit for you...

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

My understanding is that Capita stopped any development of the Teacher app some time ago and no-longer supports Android devices. I have seen many other, more feature-rich alternatives so I'd recommend doing some research before getting it. Almost all the schools I support have stopped using it.

[gh5000]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Does the app work offline? Like Groupcall emerge where it caches the data so you can take an iPad to a sports field without an internet connection and take the register for sync later.

[bobsmith]

I love teacher app!

 

For 90% of what our teachers do it works perfectly, take registers, find kids, look at timetables and use marksheets.

 

If you're running windows 10 desktops then you'll find the streamlined interface of teacher app much easier for your teaching staff then clunky 1980s vintage SIMS.net - but of course you can run either.

 

It was bloody annoying when Capita dropped support for Android, but I've not read that they've stopped development for iOS or Windows. I'd imagine SIMS 8 is going to be using a lot of the stuff that the teacher app has.

 

It's also got an offline mode that you can enable/disable per user.

[RLR]

Not sure why schools would stop using it. We've been using it for the past 2 years. It's had some issues but most of the time works really well. All our staff use it to take their register/reports. We use google apps so the staff sign in with their school google account. It works better than when we used Emerge.

 

I wish the SIMS teacher portal would get updated. The devices tab gets very full and doesn't really mean anything once the device has been enrolled.