Chromebook Tab or Android Tab

[athomashayter]

Good morning Everyone,

 

Our SEN would like to purchase some tablets and have the princely sum of £120 per tab. They would like Tabs over Chromebooks as they want something easily portable and with access to various SEN apps. We are a Google school so ideally we would like to get Chromebook Tabs (yet to find one in that price range however) but my main concern is that staff and/or students wont be able to login to them if they are somewhere out of wifi range. I know that aspects (read apps) can be configured for offline use, but pretty much everything I could find regarding logging in related to a single user rather than a shared device, does any one have any experience in using a shared chromebook device in an area without wifi? Does this work?

Alternatively it would be looking at Android tabs, and a few years ago I remember setting up Samsung Tab (6 I think), assigning a policy via Google and setting teachers up on them, but this was for a single user rather than a shared device...

 

So what are your thoughts and opinions on this?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Kind regards,

Adam

 

Also posted in Netbooks, PDA and Phones

[rogerdnixon]

We deploy either ChromeOS tablets or touch flip Chromebooks. Much easier to manage and true multiuser devices. Android devices are basically 1:1 devices which can be very effectively managed straight on the admin console.

 

You do need a connection to login - although only the first time assuming you don't wipe user data on logoff. Being offline is not something I really come across much now - people hotspot etc if offsite with a device. No WiFi - bung an AP in there. However, ChromeOS devices work perfectly fine offline - as much as any other device really.

 

Younger students we use QR code logins.

[jthompson]

Would be interested in recommendations for Chrome tablets with nice low price tags. I wouldn't expect (or really want) them for as low a budget as £120 though. Android tablets seem more achievable for that kind of money.

[athomashayter]

The cheapest one I could find is the Acer Chromebook Tab 10 @ £150, however it seemed to be out of stock everywhere I could find it with no estimated instock date.. otherwise theres a few at the £199 mark

[whartomt01]

Anyone managed to purchase Chrome OS tablets recently. Any suppliers with availability (of the cheaper end of devices)

[mrstrong]

....

 

Younger students we use QR code logins.

 

Hi, @rogerdnixon , can you say what software / system you have to allow login with QR code ?

 

I'm looking at getting Chromebooks for KS1 and login is one of the main stumbling blocks

[rogerdnixon]

We use Clever badges - have done for a long time. However, talking to them at BETT this year, its no longer free to new customers. Anyways - works fine. We a have a few scrips that pull the relevant data to csv files that get uploaded once a day and the code get uploaded into a Drive folder for each school. So they just look in their folder for the codes.

[robjduk]

Whatever you do, don't buy bloody Acer Chromebook tabs. They crack whenever someone sneezes near them and you can not get spare parts.

[TwistedHelixis]

Chromebooks for KS1 and login is one of the main stumbling blocks

One of the schools I look after recently decided to teach all KS1 pupils how to login using a username / password. They basically spent a few IT sessions just going over and over this with them. When I spoke to the year 1 teacher last week I was told how surprised they are at how well most of them were already logging in themselves.

 

I have always been told by KS1 teachers that pupils will never remember their login details and it will disrupt lessons etc, but this school has changed my view.

[mrstrong]

We use Clever badges - have done for a long time. ....

 

thanks @rogerdnixon, is this the company ? :

https://support.clever.com/hc/s/articles/360024681032?language=en_US

 

just googling, Wonde also seem to do a "magic badge" and as we already use Wonde to pull data from MIS

(scholarpack) wondering if that would make more sense ? Did you consider/compare Wonde vs Clever ?

 

Currently I manually create our google accounts (export from MIS, create a csv and upload), not to onerous

but I guess a solution that syncs from MIS and automatically creates google accounts would be nice.