remote control/collaboration

[KK20]

A handful of teachers use various tablets of their own, some android, some ipads. They have asked the question "is it possible for me to be able to control my school desktop PC with my tablet?". Their thinking is to walk about the class with their tablet in their hand, have "something" open on their class desktop PC (which is connected to a projector) and be able to remote control (for want of a better word) the PC from their tablet.

 

VNC was first on my thinking but the guest WIFI (that teachers are connected to) is firewalled off from the main network. We do install VNC on our desktop PCs and I dont want to open up VNC to the guest network, that seems foolish. I have also tried onenote, which does work but is very laggy (30 seconds to a minute for the sync to update on either side). This would only work for onenote through and would be no help for pausing a video for discussion (example). Teams was also considered but a faff to start a teams each lesson, join the session, share, etc.

 

Does anyone have any ideas or use a solution to do this? Even a collaboration software might work (perhaps I could convince people to roll this out to pupils if the collaboration works well)

[Ex-MGSTech]

Have you looked at SENSO Cloud?

[KK20]

I hadnt. We dont run a classroom management as traditionally we havent needed one. I have heard of SENSO but thought it was a teacher monitor -> whole class, I hadnt thought of running it in reverse with the tablet being granted "control" permission. I will look at a demo as the prices seem ok for a few devices.

[Ex-MGSTech]

I hadnt. We dont run a classroom management as traditionally we havent needed one. I have heard of SENSO but thought it was a teacher monitor -> whole class, I hadnt thought of running it in reverse with the tablet being granted "control" permission. I will look at a demo as the prices seem ok for a few devices.

 

Oh for us its a WHOLE lot more! PM me if you would like to see how we use it...

[Steve21]

Does it have to be control that way around?

 

We used to have some teachers who used iPads etc and we had reflector running on the pc to mirror the iPad screen that way around. So the pause etc would be done via the iPad (not remotely controlling pc)

 

Steve

[KK20]

yes. The use case is from the more technical teachers who put something up on the board and use openboard to annotate as they go. They want to wander about the class and make live notes on the openboard overlays. This means that there is software involved such as visual studio, CAD and science logging type software that the name escapes me at the moment.

 

As for SENSO we wouldnt need the extra safeguarding, filtering, network utils etc but would be interested if the remote control works. Its one to add to the list of demos.

Edited January 13, 2023 by KK20

[Brimstone]

My god.....talk about trying to over complicate things

 

Why don't you just have the content on the tablet in the first place.......and have the teacher airplay or cast this to screen at the front?

 

To add to this, where it's an up to date iPad you would be able to annotate any app and show this using Airplay

Edited January 13, 2023 by Brimstone

[dhicks]

VNC was first on my thinking but the guest WIFI (that teachers are connected to) is firewalled off from the main network.

 

I seem to remember some "use your iPad as a wireless mousepad" apps used VNC, they saved bandwidth by not needing to render the screen client-side, they just provided a mousepad-style input area for the user. Those apps were from a few years ago, I don't know if they are still available and/or whether they routed VNC to the endpoint themselves (thus solving the problem of devices being on separate networks).

[sigma]

I have had staff using https://www.airserver.com/Overview successfully.

 

If all they want to do is to controll the PC while walking arount the room, maybe a air mouse (with or without keyboard)?

[dhicks]

If all they want to do is to controll the PC while walking arount the room, maybe a air mouse (with or without keyboard)?

 

We use the Logitech K400 Plus - wireless compact keyboard with integrated touchpad, around £35 each. We've tried various "air" / gyro mice in the past with little success, teachers couldn't seem to get the hang of them. For a bit more you could perhapse try a wireless stylus pad (£100?), I haven't tried one recenty so I'm not sure what's available.

[nicholab]

I find this very strange that this was my view of the future direction of IWB a few years ago. Laptop with touch screen and cast to a large screen.

[KK20]

My god.....talk about trying to over complicate things

 

Why don't you just have the content on the tablet in the first place.......and have the teacher airplay or cast this to screen at the front?

 

To add to this, where it's an up to date iPad you would be able to annotate any app and show this using Airplay

 

I dont undestand? It isnt being overcomplicated - the software cannot be installed on an ipad - im not talking word documents (word documents already have a drawing tool and simple word collaboration would work anyway, or microsoft whiteboard) Here is the scenario the teacher presented to me. They dock their laptop into the docking station (well, port replicator) as our teachers walk between classrooms with their laptop. The laptop has a CAD program installed. Teacher opens their CAD program, teaches and the pupils are dotted about the workshop. the large screen can be see by all. The teacher uses openboard on the laptop as a transparency over the top of the CAD program.

 

What the teacher would like to do is walk around the workshop with a tablet in hand, if they need to do something with a pupil they will use the tablet to annotate on the board from a distance, not walk backwards and forwards. Perhaps they are drawing arrows, perhaps a diagram - I have no idea. Whatever it is the teacher CANNOT install the CAD program on an ipad.

 

Another teacher is in the robotics lab, this room also has pupils spread out. Some pupils are working on hardware, some on software. Teacher moves about and uses visual studio. We have limited licenses for visual studio and it is installed on certain teacher and lab PCs. Teacher again wishes to annotate on a smaller tablet whilst walking about the classroom. This teacher laptop also runs VR software for an oculus and is quite a heavyweight laptop, it cannot be carried about the class easily. Again the teacher wishes to avoid walking backwards and forwards to the screen. The software would not be able to be installed on an ipad.

 

We do have graphics tablets for some teachers - some teachers do not want large interactive screens, they prefer projectors onto whiteboards. These teachers use graphics tablets instead of touch screens, none of these teachers have asked for roaming tablet control though. I hadnt thought of a wireless tablet as an input control onto the screen - the teachers who have asked for roaming control of their laptops would probably give this a go.

Edited January 15, 2023 by KK20

[Rizzo]

Hi,

 

Have you seen https://www.vivi.io/. We looked at it about 5 years ago (Good product and it looks even better now).

 

We decided to get bigger touchscreens at the time but it's a product we would look at again.

 

Good luck.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Rizzo

[nicholab]

Hi,

 

Have you seen https://www.vivi.io/. We looked at it about 5 years ago (Good product and it looks even better now).

 

We decided to get bigger touchscreens at the time but it's a product we would look at again.

 

Good luck.

 

It depends on your budget if hanging £3.5k on the wall works that fine. But a industrial tv, cast device and laptop should be less. If you looking at 60-100 classrooms per school that a lot of money.

[jmak]

I think your approach is sound - I've always thought it seemed like a good option compared to only being able to teach from the front of the class.

 

What's the reason for the teacher laptops being on the guest network? It would be more straightforward to implement and give you more options if the teacher laptops were on the main WiFi network.

[KK20]

laptops are on the main academic network (school supplied). tablets arent (at the moment these staff are using their personal tablets), sorry that wasnt clear. I can make "exceptions" for the few tablets we are talking about. However, I know that once people start to see the benefits then it will be rolled out further. I like the look of vivi so far, I will look at a demo to see if this would work without swiss cheesing the firewall. Another local school IT admin says they do similar with chrome remote desktop, so that is another for me to look at. Edited January 16, 2023 by KK20

[KK20]

so, chrome remote desktop appears to do everything I want. I enabled the service in our google tenant for staff, installed the MSI on the teacher laptop (academic network). The teacher installed the google play client on their android tablet (guest wifi). Teacher enabled their chrome remote desktop with pin code. Opened the client - nothing was visible at first - added their school google account on their tablet, laptop appeared, input PIN and voila remote control works.

 

They are going to play with it today and see how practical it is to use. First glance was well received, lag was low, control was spot on (they use a cheap pen on their tablet, writing looked fine with a little zooming and scrolling). I will try with an ipad later this afternoon.

[LanSchoolSamson]

If a teacher installs the LanSchool Classic Teacher console on a Windows tablet, they can make their desktop PC a 'student' device in their classroom which they can control. For Air, they would just need a tablet that has a compatible browser, such as Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome.