Parent/Tutor and Open Evening, etc - how are you doing it; Teams, Telephony???

[Kitkatninja]

Hi All,

 

I don't even know where to post this, but here it goes...

 

How are you guys supporting the "virtual open evenings" and "Parent/Tutor days"?

 

We want to be able to contact parents, for communication, etc... Several options have been floated by us, and we're in discussions with our suppliers and telecoms support.

 

Option 1 - Use teams for online and call to landline option. However as we currently have an onsite PBX, so far every company we spoke to said that it's very complex for a temporary solution and it's more fitted for a replacement telephone system. Added to that, because we have an OVS license and not a Office365 licence (apart from A1), it's not straight forward when it comes to licensing...

 

Option 2 - Expand our existing phone system, this will require additional handsets, additional SIP lines, additional SIP licenses for the phone system, and POE injectors. *

 

Option 3 - Expand our existing phone system, but go down the route of softphones, softphone licenses, additional SIP Lines, additional SIP licenses, for the system, and headsets... *

 

*may also require a new DDI range as well...

 

So, what/how are you dealing with this? What option are you going for/would you go for? What other options are there?

 

Thanks

 

-Kitkatninja

Edited September 18, 2020 by Kitkatninja
change of title

[mthomas08]

We use EduLink to send messages and in the process of looking at Teams for one on one calls. Staff do use the phone but I think some want to face to face conversations.

[Garacesh]

We're doing a 'virtual tour' (of which I have not been involved in the discussions surrounding, and will undoubtedly be drafted in last-minute to make everything work..) and a Q&A session (see previous)

[mw184]

We are doing teams meetings in which parents enter their names and wait in the lobby for their turn, and the teacher brings them into the meeting for their slot, asks some data protection questions (childs name and dob). Teacher then removes the parent from the teams meeting before admitting the next parent in for their chat.

[Garacesh]

We're doing a 'virtual tour' (of which I have not been involved in the discussions surrounding, and will undoubtedly be drafted in last-minute to make everything work..) and a Q&A session (see previous)

 

Scratch that, I have now been included!

 

The brass want an opening speech, a video stream and a Q&A session

 

Which I assume means:

• Live webcam/microphone coverage of the Head as he addresses the viewers
  
• A way for parents to watch the stream but NOT broadcast their a/v input to each other
  
• A way for parents to type messages that the boss can see (bonus points if nobody else can)
  
• A way to play a pre-recorded video file or powerpoint (possible screen-share?) as part of stream
  
• An idiot-proof way to toggle between these segments
  

 

Since we don't want the parents to see/hear each other, the typical style 'conference call' e.g. Google Meet might be out of the question. Plus it looks like Google are nixing their free enhancements at the end of the month, so I'm not sure how much capacity that has.

I want it to be reasonably fool-proof, so trying to give the boss a crash-course in OBS is probably setting myself up for disaster.

 

I'm gonna start investigating Teams to see if that's going to be any good for it, but off the top of anyone's head, any other ideas?

[pablo007]

I would go with obs and live stream to you schools youtube channel and schedule it to come on with restricted access

[Garacesh]

I'm not convinced the hardware we've got here would handle OBS very well, but it's on my list of things to look into.

 

We don't actually have a youtube channel, though, which is why I suspect the boss is keen to go for Teams/Meet/etc where there's already an infrastructure in place.

 

Edit: I also feel like they're over-complicating it. The head's opening speech could easily be pre-recorded (plus it guarantees no screwups!) and added in along with the powerpoint or video of whatever it is they want to do (which I assume is the virtual tour? Apparently we've got some company coming in to do it.)

Edited September 24, 2020 by Garacesh

[pablo007]

well if you can't find another way as an absolute backup/lst resort and if you could convince HT just to do a live stream it would take a few moments to set up youtube, you could then take questions via email (iPad next to webcam ) this would have the added bonus of HT being able to screen messages or getting surprised/caught out by any questions which would then be on video for all to see..

 

just a thought

[Garacesh]

Yeah, screening messages is a huge one. I don't want the messages being seen by all the other parents, but I do think we need a 2nd body to filter through them and decide which questions the head answers, so that the head isn't sat there on stream reading through them. Does YouTube's livestream chat let you do that? E.g. blank out the chat for regular viewers and have moderators or something that can still read it? From a UX perspective I'm disinclined to have them have to submit their questions 'off-platform' if it can be avoided. Edited September 24, 2020 by Garacesh

[Gurtlush]

We went the youtube route , setup a channel and run obs on a laptop (only an i3) found a decent webcam and a separate microphone (webcam sound was rubbish). Have the videos and powerpoint setup beforehand and then start the live stream. Then just switch between when required (took some practice at home filming the dog). Plenty of help online for obs. Any questions just get emailed in and the best (and relevant) ones are then answered. Was alot easier than i thought.

[Garacesh]

Hmm, Teams has a built-in moderated Q&A mode, and apparently can support up to 10,000 viewers.

I guess I'll take a day working from home at some point next week and really get to grips with OBS.

[Tefters]

Hmm, Teams has a built-in moderated Q&A mode, and apparently can support up to 10,000 viewers.

I guess I'll take a day working from home at some point next week and really get to grips with OBS.

We have done 3 livestreams through Teams EzPz!

 

No need for OBS or anything... Simple to direct and then have presenters who you can swap between and also load up powerpoints etc...

 

Q&A simple to handle and have a person designated to answering the questions (private) and/or publish them for all to see.

 

Best of all, it's free! Not supposed to be according to documentation but it is for us and we can schedule them as we like.

[Garacesh]

Turns out that Microsoft, too, are dialling back who gets streaming capabilities on what license as of the 30th

 

I suspect the brass would rather buy an A3 license than switch to YouTube, though.

[Garacesh]

Spent half the day mucking around with Teams and OBS aaand... You can't.

OBS does what I want, cool!

Apparently there's a way to push your OBS stream to Teams, cool!

 

... but you can't do that if you're doing a broadcast that anyone can join.

Why?! Why, Microsoft, would you decide "Oh he's doing a stream outside the organisation, GIMP HIS POTENTIAL!"

[aicrd]

You can use a Virtual Camera plugin in OBS to make Teams think your OBS stream is just a webcam .

 

https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-virtualcam.949/

 

Not sure if that would work for your use case?

Edited September 28, 2020 by aicrd

[Garacesh]

Yup that's my proposed backup. Means we don't get any additional audio, but it might work. Going to meet with the brass today and try to hash it out... Or just convince them to just upload a YouTube video and do the Q&A some other way.

[MYK-IT]

Spent half the day mucking around with Teams and OBS aaand... You can't.

OBS does what I want, cool!

Apparently there's a way to push your OBS stream to Teams, cool!

 

... but you can't do that if you're doing a broadcast that anyone can join.

Why?! Why, Microsoft, would you decide "Oh he's doing a stream outside the organisation, GIMP HIS POTENTIAL!"

 

No idea if this helps...

[Danp]

Did our first one with https://www.parentseveningsystem.co.uk last Friday. Worked well, parents login using iSAMS credentials, this did cause problems where we found out some hadn't logged in before, but as for the actual system it worked well.

[MYK-IT]

Did our first one with https://www.parentseveningsystem.co.uk last Friday. Worked well, parents login using iSAMS credentials, this did cause problems where we found out some hadn't logged in before, but as for the actual system it worked well.

 

@Danp Glad it went well, reassuring as we are on the verge of making the decision to go with this system too.

 

As I have previously mentioned, the issue (for us) is identifying and obtaining suitable webcams which range from cheap (quality issues), Logitech / Microsoft (stock / inflated pricing), Hue HD Pro (stock issues?) or perhaps IPEVO 4k (stock issues), combined with a headset (for privacy / improved audio quality - e.g. Jabra UC750 USB ~£25).

 

Whatever solution it is, we identified we would need 50 of them! so if any EduGeek Suppliers want to get in touch, please do!

 

Thanks,

[sonofsanta]

We're using the bookings system in Bromcom's MCAS app (first time, and I swear-to-god a full half of my week so far has been explaining to parents, over and over, that they should enter their username where it says username, and not their email or any other random piece of data) and then we're going to use Teams for the actual calls. Staff are going to create a private Team with only them in it, start a meeting, then one-by-one invite parents in via their child's school account, and forcibly disconnect them if time is up.

 

Only problems with this system are (a) divorced parents, where two of them need to be in at once from different locations... might have to ask the kids if they're okay with temporarily changing and sharing their password with their parents; not ideal, but simpler than getting teachers to faff about with scheduled meetings and guest access (b) teachers aren't comfortable disconnecing parents but, well, needs' must, the schedule must flow © equipment at the parents end, which there's no accounting for.

 

But I'm confident it will work for 90%+ of these 500 meetings, even as I know that all I'll hear about are the 10%.

 

The Parents Evening system from School Cloud looks good (their Room Booking system was brilliant) but I'm loathe to spend the money twice if I don't need to!

[Garacesh]

@DanpAs I have previously mentioned, the issue (for us) is identifying and obtaining suitable webcams which range from cheap (quality issues), Logitech / Microsoft (stock / inflated pricing), Hue HD Pro (stock issues?) or perhaps IPEVO 4k (stock issues), combined with a headset (for privacy / improved audio quality - e.g. Jabra UC750 USB ~£25).

 

Not gonna lie, I fully expect to be trekking my webcam & cardioid in from home

Though that'll work for open evening.. Parent's evening on the other hand... Good luck anybody trying to sort out that particular box of frogs!

Edited September 29, 2020 by Garacesh

[saggu]

we are going for free trial of https://www.parentseveningsystem.co.uk . SLT wants the videos recorded but this system does not all recording. Any suggestion how staff can record on their laptops?

[Edu-IT]

For what reason would they need to be recorded and how to you intend to obtain consent from the other party to record, and then store the videos?

[sonofsanta]

Okay, worked out a way to handle divorced etc. parents, i.e. where we need to invite a guest alongside the student's account. It's honestly pretty straightforward, and mostly complicated from an admin perspective of organising the information ahead of time, but I'm not convinced it's within the technical scope of most teachers. But still, we can try...

 

1) Start your meeting as normal, ten minutes before the first appointment. From Participants, click the ... and click Manage Permissions

2) Update "Who can bypass the lobby?" to Only me

3) Back in Teams, click the More Actions ... at the very top and choose Meeting Details.

4) Turns out that gives you a link you can email to anyone to click-to-join, much like a scheduled meeting. Hurrah! Email that to the relevant parent, telling them to join five minutes before and put their full name in.

5) When they click the link, they have to wait in the lobby until you click the likkle green tick to admit them, so you can still control their entry as you're doing with the invites

 

Easy as that. At least, for anyone halfway comfortable with technology. Worth noting that people you invite automatically skip the lobby still, because the permission is implicit in the act of you calling them in.

[saggu]

For what reason would they need to be recorded and how to you intend to obtain consent from the other party to record, and then store the videos?

 

For safeguarding purpose. Just in case any parent make any allegation. Staff can save their back. Consent can be obtained through letter. No idea of storing.