We might be going with Macs :(

[the_quick]

Hi All

 

It looks like school will shell out for Mac for music departments. 34 Macs. Not really happy about it, but looks there is no point of arguing.

 

I don't know anything about macs, never had one, never used one etc, not even iphone.

 

I would like to ask you smart people what needs to be involved to set them up on a network, to allow pupils to see their network documents and is there software packaged management? Where I can centrally assign software?

I have requested that one technician needs to be professionally trained how to operate them on the network etc.

 

 

Thanks in advance

[dhicks]

I would like to ask you smart people what needs to be involved to set them up on a network, to allow pupils to see their network documents and is there software packaged management? Where I can centrally assign software?

 

Jamf will handle that for you:

 

https://www.jamf.com

 

You can set the Macs up to join a Windows domain, have them mount Windows file shares and distribute software to devices.

 

Possibly separatly from Jamf, you can also have Macs log in with Google credentials, if that's more appropriate for you than Active Directory.

[DalekSec]

Macs are not hard to understand, a lot of people put off them as they don't use them. They are fairy simple. I went from knowing pretty much 0 about Macs to setting up a MDM and a suite in about a couple weeks.

 

Things you need: A decent MDM. Jamf or Mosyle (Budget depending), patience (don't be a grump and be 'I DONT LIKE MACS SO I WONT SUPPORT THIS'), Apple School Manager and DEP are also your friends.

 

It's way simpler to setup a Mac suite from 0 than a windows one!

 

Ours are AD joined, LDAP with Mosyle then gives off the various restrictions.

 

You don't need to be professionally trained, you just need an open mind! I wasn't and i now support the suites. Chomebooks are a far greater evil trust me.

Edited March 15, 2022 by DalekSec

[LeMarchand]

You have my condolences.

 

I find that, possibly because they're for "artistic" people, there seems to be very little logic as to how things work. That said, it isn't an impossible task to get Apple stuff set up - just hard if you're used to The Microsoft Way. (Though I'd disagree with @DalekSec's thoughts about them vs Chromebooks). I'd also say that if your school will pay for training it might save a lot of headaches.

 

Also be prepared for staff who think they are just the cool cousins of Windows machines and will expect anything on a Windows machine to be available on Mac.

[Brimstone]

First thing....

 

1. Set up an Apple School Manager account...

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-school-manager/welcome/web

 

2. Choose a good MDM that can support macOS, as above Jamf and Mosyle can do this well.

 

There are reams of free videos for both of these MDM's on YT

[Norphy]

Macs can be a pain in the whasit but done properly they’re fine. As already said get, get a decent MDM and you’re golden.

 

It also helps to look at the positives as well. Don’t say ‘Oh God, I don’t know anything about these, i don’t like them’. Look at it as a learning opportunity and as something else you can put on your CV. Experience of MDMs and Mac management is valuable.

 

Plus, you may end up liking them. It happened to me…

[Smokebomb]

We went from zero Mac management last summer to something we are now fairly happy with by Xmas. Invested in Mosyle for 90 iMacs(50/50 split of intel and M1 models), their support is great and they are very patient with all the newbie questions. Our one pain point currently is trying to automate macOS updates - Apple make this really hard compared to what can be achieved with Windows, especially if users don’t have admin rights. Hoping for some improvements in this area with macOS 13!

[3s-gtech]

Decent MDM is key. We still use PM - it’s flakey now to say the least, and more than once has reset the user profile settings. Even then, in general use it just works.

 

Even without using PM, a Mac Server is a good idea for caching.

 

Macs are great for Music. Garageband is great in KS3 and arguably KS4 too for compositions, and it’s free. That’ll offset some of the cost. Comes with masses of audio loops and samples.

 

The hardware is pretty tough - our newest Macs are now 8 and are working well- just spec yours properly and don’t skimp on parts which are not upgradeable (like the RAM on our Mac Minis!)

 

Adding them to AD for logins is very straightforward. Everything else is MDM based.

[dmj]

Plus, you may end up liking them. It happened to me…

 

Me too. I picked up a macbook air M1 last year for £850 (through edustore). At the time it couldn't be beaten in terms of cost vs performance.

At work (non-edu now) it's all macs with a small number of Linux workstations. The Macs are all managed by JAMF. Previously (in education) we used MUNKI https://github.com/munki/munki/wiki and we had no problem adding them to a windows domain or accessing windows shares (which were actually samba, I digress - that's not necessary)

[DalekSec]

Plus, you may end up liking them. It happened to me…

 

Me three, before i setup our mac suite i had 0 apple products, i then brought myself a second hand MacBook just after doing the suite as i wanted to learn more...

 

few years down the line....i now have an ... iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, New MacBook and HomePod...

[Cat_Jam148]

I believe the best machine to administer a Windows domain...is a MacOS device.

 

My daily driver at work is an iMac and couldn't think of a machine better for the task. The remote desktop app alone is miles ahead of the Windows counterpart and the feature set of the Preview app always comes in use.

 

Give them a chance

[DalekSec]

I believe the best machine to administer a Windows domain...is a MacOS device.

 

My daily driver at work is an iMac and couldn't think of a machine better for the task. The remote desktop app alone is miles ahead of the Windows counterpart and the feature set of the Preview app always comes in use.

 

Give them a chance

 

Agreed, when i WFH i use my MacBook over my work laptop, the RDP client is night and day different

[Squelch]

Alternatively you could throw your toys out of the pram, lay face down and scream until you make yourself sick. That's what I would do

[the_quick]

Thanks guys, lots of advice.

 

I really don't like the idea "just learn it yourself" - I'm getting fed up with not being properly trained in anything, so on that I'm going to be very persistent with school.

Jamf looks good, is there an education pricing model?

 

I'm sure it can't be rocket science, but schools in nearby are getting rid of them as it is just to costly and there are better ways to spend money in schools (I share that sentiment). We have very small suite already (8 macs), managed by music teacher and he is already saying they are slow, just after 4 years.

 

Thanks

[supportman]

We have Mac's in our music department and they work very well, in fact I hardly have to do anything. We just get them on the wireless and have local logins for each one that are locked down.

 

Students just use onedrive to access their documents and sharepoint for the music department files.

 

Works very well to be fair.

[Norphy]

Thanks guys, lots of advice.

 

I really don't like the idea "just learn it yourself" - I'm getting fed up with not being properly trained in anything, so on that I'm going to be very persistent with school.

 

Absolutely with you there. Getting proper training for something makes a huge difference. I'm immensely grateful that my workplace at the time paid for SCCM training, for instance. I'm certain I've got ten times more out of the product because of that.

 

Jamf looks good, is there an education pricing model?

 

Yes. It's probably the best Mac MDM out there, but education pricing doesn't make it cheap. Do look into alternatives, JAMF is probably the best but it's not the only one that's good.

 

 

I'm sure it can't be rocket science, but schools in nearby are getting rid of them as it is just to costly and there are better ways to spend money in schools (I share that sentiment). We have very small suite already (8 macs), managed by music teacher and he is already saying they are slow, just after 4 years.

 

 

Difficult to comment on that without knowing what exactly you've got. I will say that because Macs are expensive (no getting away from that!), schools tended to buy the base models of whatever they bought. Unless you've got a suite of MacBook Airs, I would think those Macs have probably not got much RAM and possibly magnetic hard drives. Like any computer, give them decent speed storage and adequate RAM and they'll last for years. My own personal iMac is a 2010 27" model which I've maxed out the RAM on (16GB) and put in an SSD. Three SSDs, actually! It's by no means the fastest machine in the world and it's now running an outdated build of OS X (it's 12 years old ffs!) but it's still fast enough for a lot of things.

 

It's also worth pointing out that Macs in themselves are expensive, but quite often first party software from them isn't. Logic, for instance, is very cheap when you get educational licenses, as is Final Cut Pro. The cost of a Mac Mini plus Logic quite often works out the same as the cost of a PC with software like Sonar.

[clareq]

About 10 years ago, in a previous school the Media department insisted on Macs. I was sent on a two day course, and the Macs were duly purchased. I set up a mac server and PXE boot deployment. Within a month I was asked if there was any way I could install Windows on them as well, so the room could be used for other subjects. I dual booted them, using a free program called, if I remember correctly, rEFIt. I never saw MacOS run on those machines again.

[paulkerton]

Hope you've got people in your line for this who can see the benefits of an MDM. I once had a business manager and headteacher that refused to pay £5 per year per device for an MDM and left me in a massive hole when it came to managing anything.

 

But yes, MDM is your path on this.

[RLR]

Is it worth asking why they want MACs? I find most software these days is available on both platforms or there is an alternative that's just as good.

 

We have some MACs that are controlled via Jamf but we are getting rid of one of our classrooms of MACs as we got asked to Dual Boot them and they only get used as Windows machines. We still have some MACs in our Art department but not many.

[ColonelPanic]

We've got ours enrolled in Intune, and seem to work perfectly fine for our Creative & Digital Media bunch.

 

One thing - do buy the ones with SSDs, our 1tb fusion drives are terribly slow in comparison.

[DalekSec]

One thing - do buy the ones with SSDs, our 1tb fusion drives are terribly slow in comparison.

 

AFIK M1 macs don't come with anything other than flash storage now.

[slugshead]

Is it worth asking why they want MACs? I find most software these days is available on both platforms or there is an alternative that's just as good.

 

It'll be Logic Pro, I've had a similar battle recently and lost because the teacher only knows how to use Logic pro and isn't willing to learn Ableton/Reaper/FLStudio

[DalekSec]

It'll be Logic Pro, I've had a similar battle recently and lost because the teacher only knows how to use Logic pro and isn't willing to learn Ableton/Reaper/FLStudio

 

It's not so much this, but teaching pupils the industry standard. If you go to work in music tech places in the outside world the majority will have logic. So what's the point in teaching them music editing software that they will not use in the workspace, won't look good when they apply for jobs and i don't know a lot about music tech at unis but my guess is it's logic again

[paulkerton]

It's not so much this, but teaching pupils the industry standard. If you go to work in music tech places in the outside world the majority will have logic. So what's the point in teaching them music editing software that they will not use in the workspace, won't look good when they apply for jobs and i don't know a lot about music tech at unis but my guess is it's logic again

 

Logic is not the industry standard DAW by any stretch of the imagination. If you want to use that argument then you would teach them Pro Tools.

 

Industry standard is a weak and lazy excuse pushed by teachers who ironically aren't willing to learn. All that does is enforce monopolies and denies innovation.

 

We teach transferrable skills, we don't teach particular software. If we are there to teach the "industry standards" then we should be being paid by the software companies and/or the industry to become training centres, not pay for the privilege. There is no reason you shouldn't use FLStudio, BandLab, SoundTrap, Audacity, Garageband, Ableton, Reaper - and certainly not the "industry standards" myth.

[DalekSec]

If you want to use that argument then you would teach them Pro Tools.

 

 

... we do