Chromebooks in Schools

[discoveranother]

Hi Guys,

 

Not sure if this the correct thread, but, I just wondered for anyone out there who looks after schools, how they feel about chromebooks. I haven't used them a great deal but they came across as not ideal.

 

Many schools think chromebooks are just another laptop which can be connected to a school network with share drives etc. and I have found schools purchasing these without any information provided to IT staff like myself beforehand.

 

What are your thoughts ? My feelings are that they are just really suitable for Internet access and configuring printing on them, installing the likes of Smart Notebook and other applications is simply not possible.

 

Also, setting up Internet filtering certificate's onto them is a tedious process which requires contacting Google and unless you have a Google GSuite subscription is a further annoyance.

 

I appreciate any feedback on this as chromebooks are not something I want to bring into a windows network when Teams and the likes of Google Classroom is available through laptops and iPads.

 

Thanks all

[dhicks]

Many schools think chromebooks are just another laptop which can be connected to a school network with share drives etc. and I have found schools purchasing these without any information provided to IT staff like myself beforehand.

 

They aren't Windows laptops, no, and if you're planning to stick with Windows-based software then they wouldn't make much sense. They do work quite nicely as managed devices if you set up a GSuite domain (free) and pay the one-off management license fee per device (think it's about £15 at the moment, due to go up). We use Papercut to manage printing (they have a ChromeOS app available now) and a filtering solution which distributes on a per-user basis, even for home-owned Chromebooks if pupils log in with their school account. Everything is available for a nice managed system, and generally a reasonable cost in terms on one off or annual fees, but it's still a set of infrastructure that needs looking after and managing, and if you're already managing Windows and iOS it might make sense to stick with those.

[discoveranother]

They aren't Windows laptops, no, and if you're planning to stick with Windows-based software then they wouldn't make much sense. They do work quite nicely as managed devices if you set up a GSuite domain (free) and pay the one-off management license fee per device (think it's about £15 at the moment, due to go up). We use Papercut to manage printing (they have a ChromeOS app available now) and a filtering solution which distributes on a per-user basis, even for home-owned Chromebooks if pupils log in with their school account. Everything is available for a nice managed system, and generally a reasonable cost in terms on one off or annual fees, but it's still a set of infrastructure that needs looking after and managing, and if you're already managing Windows and iOS it might make sense to stick with those.

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I am aware they aren't Windows laptops, I guess as I only attend clients premises every few weeks for a couple of hours or so, I feel reluctant to create further work for myself using different hardware and software to manage when they are currently using a Windows network (although the client comes first) and I am there only briefly during each visit, especially when they can use the likes of Teams or Google Classroom from their current notebooks and Ipads.

[Sylv3r]

Certainly not a waste of time here. We are a fully Office365 school but have over 250 laptops including those provided by the DfE for students. The devices are perfect for us to enable students to access web-based resources including Microsoft Teams as well as providing us with the ability to lock the devices down via the G Suite Admin.

 

We've rolled out Smoothwall to the devices too and filtering is working really well.

 

It all comes down to the requirements of the school - yes they are not fit for purpose to power interactive whiteboards and whiteboard software, but they'll be plenty user cases where they do have value.

[DGardiner]

Chromebooks are great, manage expectations... for a school who uses gsuite and the majority of tools are web based theyre a good choice and enable more equipment to get in front of the kids.

 

 

"Gsuite subscription" you mean the free thing you just have to fill out a form to attain? for the equivalent you would have to have to run a windows network(azure/ad) or ipads(MDM)?

 

I think you miss the point, Education does not revolve around a smart board or any application. when every child has a device available at their desk with colaborative tools the paradigm changes and a board is no longer the central focus in the lesson.

 

Teach tansferable skills... not software packages

 

We have a device agnostic approach and let our schools follow their own path and supported them in it, our traditional windows estate has been shrinking. Our iOS/Chrome estate has been growing steadily in a pretty even split until last year when in the first lockdowns when our google equipment was ready to go home without any prep. it has within the last 12 months Quadrupled in size and our 1:1 ios schools are now looking like ipads are going to be phased out... and this off their own backs.

[caffrey]

Filtering is easy, no need to contact Google at all, printing just works fine with mobility print. Shared drives are a thing of the past

 

Chromebooks boot quickly, problem with a Chromebook ? Powerwash

 

Classroom connectivity ? Install a USB C hub, one cable to plug in = projector \ sound etc.

 

The future is cloudy adapt or else

 

Covid 19 is accelerating this, if your application isn't in the cloud with a subscription model you will fall by the wayside.

 

Google is way ahead of the curve on this, Microsoft are trying to catch up imo

[DGardiner]

i means its almost like a MSP can make bank for no effort managing a fleet of laptops from a web based admin panel, yet push back

[TronXP]

Managing my 1300 Chromebooks takes less time and effort than managing the 150 Windows devices we have!

[ThatBoringBloke]

It's certainly not prejudice, it's basically boils down to time managing it. If a school are willing to pay for that extra time managing chromebooks then I am willing to educate myself and see how it goes. You don't get service for nothing. I assume you are at your clients everyday so find you have the time. I'm there once every several weeks for just a couple of hours. That's what they pay for.

 

Chromebooks geniunely take very little time to manage.

 

Setting up your Google domain takes time (but it's not that hard). Once its up and running how complicated and 'managed' you want it to be depends on you (or your clients). Chromebooks can simply be unboxed, added to wifi then the domain and ready to use.

[synaesthesia]

We're loving the chromebooks and actually looking forward to normality with how they can be put to use when in school, or even when not. Using office 365, they log into them using their office 365 credentials, go straight to the office 365 portal from where they can access emails, all the (online) office apps, Teams and of course the web and it just works. Filtering is done via smoothwall whether off or on site and very little difficulty in managing them. The most we've had to do to rectify a device is a hard restart (refresh button & power) and the most we're likely to have to do is a powerwash (factory reset).

We're still Windows incumbent and likely to remain that way, we still have shared drives etc but are already well on the road to changing that. CV19 has been a catalyst - the suggestions of moving the majority of those shared areas to online was met with questions and uncertainty last year. If I suggest it again now, it'd barely raise an eyebrow.

 

It's a very different way of doing things, and a couple of years ago I have said no. Even if we had to manage them with gsuite fully, create yet another account and manually log in it's too much, but like this it's easy, quick and hassle free.

There will always be a push-back for anything new, and there's always going to be software well used and loved in school that isn't cloud based and won't work (at least not easily) in the way you'd like, but the people making those packages also know where things are heading. If they don't have a cloud product now, they will. Unless it's called SIMS of course! (and no, a remote session doesn't count )

 

It's worth getting a couple in, getting them set up, and if your office 365 based looking at having authentication done by Azure - that's not something I can advise on as our MAT lead Azure genius managed that for us but it makes life so easy and no doubt well documented. You need to be comfortable with it too of course and as has been said you need to be able to manage expectations with staff. Get those couple up and running, present to your leaders what you have, what you can do. It could be a no. It could be a gamechanger for the better.

Good luck either way!

[LeMarchand]

Many schools think chromebooks are just another laptop which can be connected to a school network with share drives etc. and I have found schools purchasing these without any information provided to IT staff like myself beforehand.

 

This is the biggest problem: Expectations. IT needs to be involved before a decision is made.

 

That said, they are generally pretty easy to manage (make sure school knows to budget +£20 or so/device for this). "Shared Drives" can be set up in the cloud - I recently did this, uploaded the contents from the "on site" server version and blocked access to it once the upload was complete.

 

Yes, mainly useful for internet access and a limited number of apps. Ours are all student machines and we don't allow them to print, so never looked into that. That said, most if not all a student needs is available on the web.

 

Filtering: Ours are mainly on site so we just use the LEA provided Smoothwall, but any going off site that you want filtered will need something set up. The DfE machines had Cisco Umbrella, which took me a while to work out - but it's like a GPO: once you've worked out how to get what you want to work, it gets applied without further intervention.

 

Also our Chromebooks seem to be pretty robust in terms of build (and they aren't top of line ones) with very good battery longevity. Wish I could say the same for similarly priced Windows machines.

 

I'd certainly rather have Chrome devices than Apple ones!

[TwistedHelixis]

All my schools are (or were) windows based but one recently purchased 100 Chromebooks for 6y and 5 at a primary school, and wow they have been a massive success and I haven't even given any training yet.

 

About 30 are also being used at home and the feedback from parents and teachers has been lovely.

 

They take longer to unbox than setup.

 

I have also deployed a few apps from the Play Store

Edited January 28, 2021 by TwistedHelixis

[Chrisbf1]

Did my first 7 yesterday. So easy to setup. pushed out a few apps. am i doing something wrong, but each time a user logged on it seemed to download the apps

[DGardiner]

Did my first 7 yesterday. So easy to setup. pushed out a few apps. am i doing something wrong, but each time a user logged on it seemed to download the apps

 

Thats how they work since theyre user assigned not device, they shouldnt download the apps every time if you encourage the same user on the same chromebook.

[FragglePete]

I looked quickly into Chromebooks just before the Pandemic started - a sort of, "would they be better in the classroom?" sort of thing seeing as so much was going on line and we were installing less and less on our aging laptops. We're Office365 with Azure AD Connect, SSSO, etc. I managed to setup G-Suite and then syncing using GCDS with our AD, got three devices in initially for testing, setup so they authenticate using Office365 with their normal network credentials - this really didn't take much effort at all. Tweaked all the necessary policies on the admin dashboard (again, took hardly anytime) and just impressed how they work. When we started to get the devices from the DfE during the 2nd Lockdown, I took the gamble and ordered Chromebooks - we have a total of 89 Chromebooks in use now by students at home. Feedback has been excellent and just so easy to setup; from out the box, join wifi, updated, enterprise enrolled, moved to appropriate location in the directory and it's ready to go in less than 5 minutes.

 

We have them set so the home page is set to the myapplications.microsoft.com with gives them access to everything they need to work online. We setup the Play Store so they have access to install the Microsoft Apps and other Apps we seem fit. For such lower powered devices they do ok, but I would be interested to see more powerful devices later on down the line with touch screen, etc. But, seriously, when this is all over its going to be hard to justify buying Windows 10 Laptops for our trolleys and cabinets that just get used for Office and Internet Searching.

 

We started using InTune as well, and I'm impressed with what we can do with this also as we do have a stash of Windows 10 devices for some students where a Windows 10 device suits them better.

 

I managed to obtain two Chromebooks for two of my kids at home to use during lockdown, and they are doing all their Teams lessons, etc on them and they absolutely love them - they really do hit the mark at the moment.

 

Pete

[Kravex]

The security features built into the management of them are going to be very useful when they just keep ignoring schools when they ask for them back.

 

Having already had a parent sell one of the first Windows laptops that were sent out, the remote security features like turning off Powerwash (or leaving it reattaching itself to the domain automatically just to annoy them), lock the domain or users that can logon and locking it with a message asking for it to be returned are going to be so much fun.

[DGardiner]

THaving already had a parent sell one of the first Windows laptops that were sent out

 

Id love to hear how they even justified this

[Kravex]

Id love to hear how they even justified this

 

It was even one of the first DFE locked ones! I believe the school office weren't surprised by it.

[paulkerton]

The security features built into the management of them are going to be very useful when they just keep ignoring schools when they ask for them back.

This is going to be crucial. We know who has them, and we can make them useless to keep. The most useful function of all!

[DGardiner]

This is going to be crucial. We know who has them, and we can make them useless to keep. The most useful function of all!

 

When ours initially went out we hadnt restricted the "allowed logins" to our domains, Quite a few parents rang up complaining after that was rectified...

[paulkerton]

When ours initially went out we hadnt restricted the "allowed logins" to our domains, Quite a few parents rang up complaining after that was rectified...

 

We've had the opposite. Parents wanting them not to be restricted to our domain because they have kids in other schools who are using them, as their school hasn't got equipment to them.

Balancing act!

[DGardiner]

We've had the opposite. Parents wanting them not to be restricted to our domain because they have kids in other schools who are using them, as their school hasn't got equipment to them.

Balancing act!

 

Ours was them complaining that they had been restricted since they could no longer use them for facebook/etc

[JATSO]

Would rather have Chromebooks than Windows been given both at 2 different schools and found the Chromebooks a lot quicker to run up and deploy.

[jblackburnHWGA]

We've got Chromebooks for all our KS4 and Ks5 students. They work well. Pay to manage and enroll them into gsuite

 

We block all the gsuite stuff and push O365 as we're an O365 school. The play store is great and gsuite works really well

We use Smoothwall to filter and capture which also works well.

[Danp]

Having changed schools in Oct '20 from an MS school with a few Chromebooks to a Google school with only a few MS devices. The Google system is a lot easier to manage. I know that's being very generic, I much prefer Teams over Classroom/Meet but hey, lets leave that there.

 

If you want a quick and easy filtering system, check out Securly, easy to setup based on OUs in Google Admin.