iPad keyword monitoring

[steveg]

Does anyone use a safeguarding solution for ipads that actually works?

 

We use Senso.cloud for our main safeguarding and it just doesn't work on our ipads (proxy issues that support cannot resolve) and even if it did the browser doesn't look great.

 

Do any of the other companies now have an ipad app that works? We filter fine with smoothwall on site, but need that extra level that keyword monitoring offers.

 

We're looking to expand our 1:1 provision, so may look at alternative devices as well.

[2ilent8cho]

We have 1:1 iPad and use Lightspeed. Monitors web searches , YouTube searches onsite and at home, also monitors Office 365 content (Word documents, Outlook etc) . Has the advantage of not requiring the students to login to get internet so long as you have a username assigned to the device in your MDM like JAMF.

[Cat_Jam148]

Currently with Senso but we're trialing Classroom Cloud at this moment due to Senso requiring a login for their web browser as our pupils (primary) do not currently have Microsoft 365 accounts. Also tried Impero's offering, and then quickly realised why we switched away from them a few years ago!

 

Overall, Classroom Cloud seems a fairly well built piece of software. As with all keyword monitoring apps, it is restricted what it can do by Apple and you don't get the full safari style experience, but it works well enough for our primary to be able to do basic web browsing - haven't found any sites which struggle in it. Keyword monitoring appears to be quite effective, although I haven't yet rolled it out to our classrooms to put it to the test.

 

The whole platform isn't as full featured as Senso from the IT management side, but they do throw in NetSupport for no extra cost* which has the missing features.

 

*at least until the cloud version is a little more fleshed out.

 

My only real gripe with the iPad client is that it doesn't currently allow you to copy images from web pages, which we're able to work around that by taking a screenshot but I have raised it as a feature request. Also, the UI of the web portal could do with a once over as there's a lot of menus within menus, especially when you've come from Senso which has a pretty good UI in my opinion, and the decision to sort everything into classes rather than device lists like Senso has taken some getting used to.

 

Worth giving a trial though, we'll probably be switching to it as iPads are now our most used devices, and I haven't come across a better offering. I'm still surprised after all these years that the Apple platform is the most neglected when it comes to these systems, most of the time an afterthought.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Cat_Jam148

[steveg]

Thanks. I'm surprised smoothwall doesn't pick up more, but they aren't always typing these things into a web search. Impressive that Lightspeed can monitor 365 content, I will have a look at that.

 

I'd been having a look at Classroom Cloud, we used to use Netsupport before moving to Senso, main reason we moved was the need for a cloud based system with a lot of device off-site.

 

Still surprises me how much Apple push the whole apple school thing, but don't provide the tools or at least access needed to fully integrate them into school monitoring solutions etc. They work so well for us as 1:1 devices, they are cheap, reliable, hard wearing, easy to manage, just wish safeguarding was a little easier on them!

[k-strider]

we need somthing too so intrested to follow.. we used Impero which is great for computers but no good for iPads all our iPad traffic just all goes through surfprotect together and we cant idnetify what an individual device has done / been before we mooved the the Virtual Firewall our old Netasq one at least gave us internal ip addresses so we had a trace

[2ilent8cho]

If you are interested in what you see in Lightspeed in a 1:1 iPad deployment here are a few screenshots (with names removed)

 

You can search by user (which it knows from the user assigned via the MDM). This is the quick overview page for 1 user

 

 

This is web history reporting page options for 1 user

 

Any Safeguarding alerts get put in this Alert Dashboard as a case

 

 

When you click cases it lists all the things its flagged, either images, text in a email, word document or searches. (I've covered the names in red)

 

 

The Office 365 integration supports Teams, OneDrive, Outlook, Word, Powerpoint and Excel, so anything done via these on an iPad will be monitored.

Edited November 9, 2022 by 2ilent8cho