Going Google and saying goodbye to Microsoft

[m-newnham]

Hi Folks,

 

Has anyone completely ditched MS products?

 

I manage the IT in a primary school with approx 700 pupils. All file storage is now in Google Workspace and the MIS and other software has gone web based. Most classes have chromebooks and there are a few Ipad trolleys.

 

Im increasingly thinking about not renewing MS licencing and converting office PCs, teacher PCs and the one remaining Windows suite of PC to Chrome OS with a view to ultimately free up the server room.

 

Im aware there is some software that I may find a struggle to find alternatives but from a brief survey, Chrome and IOS have most things covered. Has anyone made this move?

 

Cheers

[TwistedHelixis]

Not made the move yet, but at the same point as you. Most pupils use Chromebooks and all the data is in Google Workspace etc.

 

Ill keep an eye on this post :-)

[ThatBoringBloke]

Something I have been long driving towards. However we are not there yet.

Windows is still embedded within the school, and with the Admin staff in particular.

Things such as print management continue to be a stumbling block for us (though there are solutions out there).

As a secondary we teach computer science and 'apparently' they need windows (not true).

 

Changing the mindset is the biggest battle.

 

Take a look here to see if you can gather any ideas.

[m-newnham]

Interesting to read other views on this. I'm going to look into this more next half term and will post my findings. If the change is going to happen I need to have all the bases covered.

 

Admin staff is easy. Theres nothing we need in MS office that Google can't do. I have a few centrally managed printers but am pushing towards paperless where possible.

 

School IT doesnt need to be complicated. I would save a lot of time and money not managing servers, anti virus, windows deployment etc

 

People adapt to change ok when its forced on them

[Ditto]

I started in a new free school which was initially primary only then grew to an all-through school, so secondary too. The school was strategically Google with Chromebooks for all and had backing for that approach from it's inception. It all worked extremely well and new staff that joined knew it was a non Microsoft school, and with Governor and SLT commitment, they had to work with it - the pressure to meet any staff's particular MS whim was a non-issue.

 

There were a small number of Windows PCs, including me (Data Manager and Workspace manager), business manager, SLT, and a couple of office staff. I think we could have managed with Chromebooks if needed. As the school progressed towards Year 11, pressure grew to have a traditional IT network of Windows desktops in an IT lab. Memory is fading but I think it was things like programming and general Computing curriculum related work.

 

Was it absolutely necessary? I'm not sure, but for the pupils education, especially those doing Computing, having both ChromeOS and Windows experience wasn't a bad thing. Another exception was Music, which was a high profile topic at the school where a cluster of Apple devices and software were insisted upon - I recall Sibelius being argued as an (expensive) must have, I guess much as the Adobe suite of software was too.

 

We then had a new secondary head, who want to ditch our cloud based MIS for SIMS because he couldn't (refused!) to adapt. The period was a bit of a disaster and said head was gone within a year.

 

So, in summary, I think it's 100% workable in primary, harder in secondary, but as mentioned earlier you need 100% SLT (and ideally governance) buy-in and willingness to battle through the challenges. The only piece of software that I recall operationally that absolutely needed windows, and I forget it's name, but it was the archaic software to move files to and from exams bodies, which of course was important for the exams officer! Realistically though, I'd happily run that on GCP, AWS or similar, but a Windows PC hidden from sight could be the compromise!

 

 

Oh, one other tip - watch out for the maverick staff and lock machines down - we had a couple of staff that installed LibreOffice - yuk!

[free780]

I’ve always struggled with the notion that education should be preparing children/young people for the world of work. Predominantly Microsoft dominate that space. That being said I know people who do use Google Workspace rather than M365 in a non educational job. It’s just a shame that MS make licensing so complex and A5 a real necessity just for the security aspects.

[nicholab]

The one issue is what have you done with directory service? What have you used to replace AD?

 

We then had a new secondary head, who want to ditch our cloud based MIS for SIMS because he couldn't (refused!) to adapt. The period was a bit of a disaster and said head was gone within a year.

 

Why do you always get these types that try and go against the schools tech just because they are a head teacher. I thought head teacher where supposed to work with a team of experts! Everyone else it takes a 1000 year to change anything and a 1000 process they think it can be done in one.

Edited February 12, 2023 by nicholab

[hardtailstar]

The school I left last year started going down the non Microsoft route replacing mapped drives and office for Google drive and equivalent products although carried on with windows pcs.

 

I joined a company last year and only the finance department uses MS Excel. Everyone else uses Google Workspace on Mac laptops.

[ThatBoringBloke]

The one issue is what have you done with directory service? What have you used to replace AD?

 

Google Workspace is a directory service, and with Google Credential Provider for Windows can be used for authentication. Simillar to the Novell Client for Windows if any of you can remember that far back!

[TechMonkey]

I’ve always struggled with the notion that education should be preparing children/young people for the world of work. Predominantly Microsoft dominate that space. That being said I know people who do use Google Workspace rather than M365 in a non educational job. It’s just a shame that MS make licensing so complex and A5 a real necessity just for the security aspects.

 

Surely education should be preparing the pupils on how to learn, be resilient and to have a breadth of experience, not how to use a specific package? Skills not software as it was drummed into me. Because we have all seen the uproar when some developer moves a button from those that can't handle things not being exactly the same.

[2ilent8cho]

Surely education should be preparing the pupils on how to learn, be resilient and to have a breadth of experience, not how to use a specific package? Skills not software as it was drummed into me. Because we have all seen the uproar when some developer moves a button from those that can't handle things not being exactly the same.

This is exactly how it should be. When I was at primary school in the late 80s/early 90s we did not have Microsoft Word on the computers, we had Word Star, and the one Windows 3.0 computer had Word Perfect Works, i did not get exposed to Microsoft Word 6 and Word 97 until later years of high school. I should be taught Word Processing, not Microsoft Word and the skillset being taught at school level should be mostly transferable between different Word Processing packages, same with Spreadsheets. Anything more than that should be trained by the employer for the specific needs and applications used.

[PotNoodleTech]

I think it's more possible now than it's ever been, especially if you are already using and embracing google in your school it would be a fairly smooth migration.

[Affray]

When putting ChromeOS Flex on old equipment you have to factor in paying for a chrome upgrade licence so you can manage them (around £27). Also when deprovisioning, do the upgrading "Same model replacement" or you will lose the licence. (I've lost 97 as we didn't know). I'm hoping to move a room over from Windows to ChromeOS Flex to see.

[m-newnham]

Hey Folks,

 

Just an update on my project to fully move away from MS at the primary school I work at. I have undertaken a trial this half term and for the most part Google OS / Flex can do everything the school needs. However, we are not going to make the jump just yet.

 

The main reason is that all the teacher computers have fairly new aver visulisers which are used a lot. The aver sphere extension for chrome just doesnt function properly. I am working with aver on this.

 

We also still require a server for a few legacy bits of software that I have not yet moved to cloud versions, i.e target tracker .

 

We also use Smart boards with pens, and would have to convert the notbook files. This is not a major problem and one we can deal with. Also the smart ink software doesnt work on chrome. I found annotate.net which is a good alternative when used as a full subscription.

 

Finally the print drivers in Chrome are not as feature rich. The stapler and finisher functions dont work for our main printer so users need to compelte these tasks from the printer instead of the computer.

 

Overall, I may phase in some offices with chrome only this coming year and see how it goes from there. We can get by without MS Office.

[TwistedHelixis]

Thanks for the update. I was going to ask about smart notebook and alternative for Chromebook. I'll have a look at your suggestion.

 

Thanks [emoji106]

[m-newnham]

Thanks for the update. I was going to ask about smart notebook and alternative for Chromebook. I'll have a look at your suggestion.

 

Thanks [emoji106]

 

Annotate.net is a good alternative to Smart Ink and has other features. Smart Notebook files can be imported into Smart Lumio and they run on chrome no problem, although the plugins wont import. There is a chrome extension for Lumio and it links in with google classroom. If you have smart boards this is coverd under the licence for the learning suite. Google Jamboard also covers basic whiteboard tasks.

[TwistedHelixis]

do the upgrading "Same model replacement" or you will lose the licence.

I thought you could also choose "different model replacement" and you could keep the license, is that not the case?

[gszech]

Annotate.net is a good alternative to Smart Ink and has other features. Smart Notebook files can be imported into Smart Lumio and they run on chrome no problem, although the plugins wont import. There is a chrome extension for Lumio and it links in with google classroom. If you have smart boards this is coverd under the licence for the learning suite. Google Jamboard also covers basic whiteboard tasks.

 

Thanks for this suggestion. I've been looking for SMART Notebook alternative for months, didn't know that they had their own product. Hopefully Lumio license for whole school will be cheaper than online price of £45 per teacher per year.

[cliffjnr]

Hi

 

Our primary school is in the same position. We also use smartboards and the only thing really holding us back is Smart Notebook. I'm aware of Lumio, but it doesnt have some of the features of Notebook. However I'm now of the opinion I just push everyone over. We'll test it with two teachers first.

 

Re everything else its covered (for us) by Google Docs etc, and recently Canva. Publisher was a big problem, but Canva has filled that with ease and its free for education if you apply to them. It also is great for presentations, and also whiteboards, although I've not tried it for that.

 

The other option is Parallels have a version for ChromeOS where you can run Windows on the Chromebook. Id thought about this as a stop-gap for Smart Notebook until Lumio becomes more feature rich, but I now think just go Windows free totally.

 

For now I'm going to leave the office running Windows.

 

For the teacher we plan on them have a high end chromebook and a dock on their table for when theyre in class.

 

The new Smart Boards also run their own software and have builkt in NFC readers that teacher can scan and all their content, Google drive etc appears no matter which screen theyre on in school. I plan on buying on of those fro testing as well.

 

Any advice would be good, or recommended apps.

[MartinT]

We've done the opposite, gradually migrated towards 365 and ditched the last bastion of Google last week when trips moved over to Teams.

 

So it's Google that we've said goodbye to.

[CyBeRkId2002]

It is funny... from a management perspective I have found some of the tasks that are second nature on the Microsoft platform extremely hard to administer in Google, and I wonder whether that is just because I have an MS mentality. I suppose I am thinking more specifically about Classrooms vs Teams.

 

For example, Classroom management - how do you go about this as an administrator? We have had instances of teachers (who were owners of a particular classroom) leaving and simple management of that classroom has become hard to the point of unmanageable and 100s of resources had to be shifted. Which leads to my second point...

 

Structuring of files seems very proprietary on Google Classrooms compared with a Teams file store... If we wanted to export, move, manipulate uploaded resources in any way I am finding it virtually impossible. This would be no problem in Teams

 

Again, may be my mentality, not understanding the tools or missing something very obvious but Classrooms in particular seems to be missing the equivalent of the Teams Admin Center for better centralised management.

 

Having said that we do have an increasing number of Chromebooks in the school and as a cheap, fast to boot, easy to access tool they are hard to beat and are likely to become our go to devices outside of dedicated IT suites. Pair them with Azure AD sign-on, Azure Provisioning and some shortcuts to, ahem, Teams / Office Online and you have the best of both worlds.

[rogerdnixon]

I manage IT across out Trust - so we have 10000's or Classes and I also teach and use Classroom daily. For a management point of view I do nothing on Classroom on a daily basis. Classes are synced to the schools MIS - Bromcom in our case and after an intiall setup on there you leave it to do its stuff by and large. The only management tasked I'd do (or a team member) would be to add a ad-hoc teacher e.g. an intern to a class and the Bromcom tool makes this very easy. But you can do it with GAM as well.

 

As far as resources go, they live in a Shared Drive and when I set assignments that where the the source resources live. This is something as a teacher I do - not an admin. Teachers can also reuse assignments from previous years - sometime I do all the time. You can also make a template class and share that template and duplicate the assignments on another class now (if you have Plus). So kind of like having a master class. Again zero admin intervention here - something teachers do not admins.

 

So as a teacher/student its super easy and intuitive to use and as an admin there is virtually nothing for me to do. Win win I'd say.