So, what 'devices' can you recommend...?

[Koldov]

My school Business manager is having a little bit of an anti-apple wobble, having just been told by me that 60 of our iPads will no longer support the apps we are using at the new core of our teaching & learning (namely Google Classroom) because they are too old to have the iOS updated....

 

I have never been an Apple fan boy if I'm honest, they have been historically a real pain to get working, installing apps and generally managing them and it left a bad taste everything having to be so... well... Apple....

 

However, now I am being told to look at alternatives I am afraid to say I have become rather fond of being able to use Apple Classroom and Cisco Meraki to manage them easily and never having to worry about chargers or keyboards etc being damaged (and in the tough cases we have, they have even withstood being dropped), we have bespoke charging/syncing/storage and they have carry baskets that enable easily transporting between classrooms and honestly I haven't had any real problems with them in years, you know 'it just works'.

 

We are a Junior/Primary and I guess the obvious choice is Chromebooks, but for the reasons above I think a tablet is a better option

 

So now he is asking about Learnpads.....

[DGardiner]

I have never been an Apple fan boy if I'm honest, they have been historically a real pain to get working, installing apps and generally managing them and it left a bad taste everything having to be so... well... Apple....

 

if youre having issues here a bad choice of MDM or i would guess not wanting to pay for MDM is the issue, IOS10 was the turning point in making them completely hands off and managing them effectively. im working from home at the minute and deployed 10 ipads last night while they were at a teachers home.

 

she unboxed them, connected to her home wifi and pressed nextnextnext - took them to work today and taught a class.

 

 

Chromebooks are another great choice, but you really have to manage expectations - People think theyre ipads... and pcs.... and will ask you to install stuff, buy windows software and ask for it to be installed.

 

We have both across our trust and both are a doddle to manage - but for ipads your mdm choice will make or break it

[Koldov]

Yes, I did say I have liked them much more since using Apple School Manager, DEP and Cisco Meraki MDM.

 

I was talking about the bad old days when I remember needing to have batches of 5 iTunes accounts to get apps installed manually and then needing an Apple Mac Mini and Apple configurator etc...

[Brimstone]

My school Business manager is having a little bit of an anti-apple wobble, having just been told by me that 60 of our iPads will no longer support the apps we are using at the new core of our teaching & learning (namely Google Classroom) because they are too old to have the iOS updated....

 

I have never been an Apple fan boy if I'm honest, they have been historically a real pain to get working, installing apps and generally managing them and it left a bad taste everything having to be so... well... Apple....

 

However, now I am being told to look at alternatives I am afraid to say I have become rather fond of being able to use Apple Classroom and Cisco Meraki to manage them easily and never having to worry about chargers or keyboards etc being damaged (and in the tough cases we have, they have even withstood being dropped), we have bespoke charging/syncing/storage and they have carry baskets that enable easily transporting between classrooms and honestly I haven't had any real problems with them in years, you know 'it just works'.

 

We are a Junior/Primary and I guess the obvious choice is Chromebooks, but for the reasons above I think a tablet is a better option

 

So now he is asking about Learnpads.....

Have you considered the trade in value of the old iPads...? I wouldn't go anywhere near Learnpads...

Edited June 30, 2020 by Brimstone

[Koldov]

I have mentioned for him to investigate the trade-up possibility, I wouldn't know where to start! Which suppliers do this?

 

Also, the possibility of leasing rather than buying...

 

I have to admit Learnpads give me an impression of a device for very early years students. I'm sure I used to see TV adverts for a consumer device called something very similar aimed at nursery aged children? It's a whole self contained learning system squashed onto an android tablet isn't it?

[Brimstone]

I have mentioned for him to investigate the trade-up possibility, I wouldn't know where to start! Which suppliers do this?

 

Also, the possibility of leasing rather than buying...

 

I have to admit Learnpads give me an impression of a device for very early years students. I'm sure I used to see TV adverts for a consumer device called something very similar aimed at nursery aged children? It's a whole self contained learning system squashed onto an android tablet isn't it?

Try these for trade in...

 

https://www.krcs.co.uk/environmental-sustainability

 

https://www.albion.co.uk/trade-in/

[jmak]

I have mentioned for him to investigate the trade-up possibility, I wouldn't know where to start! Which suppliers do this?

 

Also, the possibility of leasing rather than buying...

 

I have to admit Learnpads give me an impression of a device for very early years students. I'm sure I used to see TV adverts for a consumer device called something very similar aimed at nursery aged children? It's a whole self contained learning system squashed onto an android tablet isn't it?

I think you might be thinking of Leap-pads. Learnpads are designed for schools and only make sense if you're managing sets of them - I'm pretty sure they were never marketed to the general public.

 

Their strength was deploying lessons: you could have all of the apps installed and then a teacher or admin could force a profile or lesson with only a single app or website (or a curated selection) to any or any group of devices. It applies instantly and was a great way to control what activities the kids had available - better than an MDM from that point of view. All of the traditional MDM features were there too and when they were first around there was nothing much else for Android and Apple MDMs were much less advanced.

 

Having said that, I found the Android version went out of date sooner than I would have liked and the devices weren't stunning - definitely not as well made as iPads. As with any Android tablet or Chromebook, you'll be up against teachers wanting apps that are iPad only. They did keep running Flash long after it was generally removed from Android though!

[psydii]

If you want tablets, then iPad really is leagues ahead of everything else. Consider how long your existing iPads have lasted.

 

If you want Google Classroom, Chromebooks are leagues ahead against everything else (at that price point).

 

 

Pick which is more important - at primary though I suspect tablet are clearly the better choice for the younger years and that benefits of Google Classroom only become significant in years 4 / 5 /6.

 

Perhaps a mixed economy?

[Guest Guest]

We had issues with our iPads when we used Lightspeed, however, we've just migrated to JAMF school and its been great

[Jobos]

if youre having issues here a bad choice of MDM or i would guess not wanting to pay for MDM is the issue, IOS10 was the turning point in making them completely hands off and managing them effectively. im working from home at the minute and deployed 10 ipads last night while they were at a teachers home.

 

she unboxed them, connected to her home wifi and pressed nextnextnext - took them to work today and taught a class.

 

 

Chromebooks are another great choice, but you really have to manage expectations - People think theyre ipads... and pcs.... and will ask you to install stuff, buy windows software and ask for it to be installed.

 

We have both across our trust and both are a doddle to manage - but for ipads your mdm choice will make or break it

 

We’re going to be getting iPads next term and need something similar. Could I ask what mdm solution are you using? Sounds just what we’re after.

[DGardiner]

We’re going to be getting iPads next term and need something similar. Could I ask what mdm solution are you using? Sounds just what we’re after.

 

https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-pro/ were using the hosted product, costs us about £6.50 per device per year.

 

if you are completely new to ipad start your ASM Enrolment/approval now now so you are ready, buy the ipads from someone who can enroll them in DEP(this can be done after manually using a mac and apple configurator but obviously its a manual proccess, but will help if you have some pre-DEP or non DEP resold equipment that are IOS10+). JAMF has a mandatory jumpstart training session for new setup though, this does increase the startup cost quite a bit but they will do start to finish first time configuration and it is absolutely worth it.

 

Once complete, you will spend more time unboxing the ipads than actually setting them up with the help of proximity setup.

 

 

Dont get me wrong, you can do the above with any MDM provider as long as they support DEP and VPP Device Deploy, Ive used Meraki(origional free product), Lightspeed, Mosyle, JAMF and jamf is by far the most reliable solution by far, Lightspeed used to fail to deploy apps because the initial deployment would choke the internet, download fail on a hanful of ipads and not correct that once things eased up, this gave me a year of hell and lightspeed supports solution was force app reinstall for the whole OU which would just move the issue to other ipads, i havent used it in 2-3 years now this may have changed but it burned me enough!

 

Mosyle looked good but didnt really work as a trust wide solution for an all in one panel but i can see it being great as a single school and if you have the time play with the free version and bump it up if you need. When our trusts second big 1:1 program kicked off i managed to squeeze in a centrally managed jamf install so i took that oportunity and have not regretted it one bit.

 

JAMF has some big third party integration companys too so you can really get some use out of the likes of apple classroom if you choose for very little legwork if you want the details of the company that we got farmed out to by our reseller i can pass that over, they basically supported our deployment for free post install and all they asked was to be on the table for any post install training/extras!

 

 

edit, if you intend to go down the jamf route get that order in early, their training schedule was rammed last year and i had 600+ ipads to enroll in 1 week last summer.

Edited June 30, 2020 by DGardiner

[localzuk]

My school Business manager is having a little bit of an anti-apple wobble, having just been told by me that 60 of our iPads will no longer support the apps we are using at the new core of our teaching & learning (namely Google Classroom) because they are too old to have the iOS updated....

iPads being too old to update? That means they're, what, at least 6 years old? Your business manager is being unreasonable to be honest. Chromebooks have a fixed lifespan of support too - up to 8 years depending on the model/release date. Even Windows devices have a limit - an 8 year old Windows laptop is nearly always going to be fairly unusable as it will be far too slow.

 

Rather than switching ecosystem, I would ask your BM how long they want the devices to last for. Sounds like this is an issue of not wanting to invest in new kit regularly more than anything.

Edited July 1, 2020 by localzuk