Amazon Fire Tables - NO MDM

[talksr]

Hi there,

Looking for some advice on how to deal with this situation.

 

During lockdown, I was off for about 3 weeks whilst I recovered from an operation. It is just me, nobody else to deal with ICT and in my absence, the school panic purchased what can only be described as a total load of junk.

Cheap Acer laptops with 1 year warranty, with such small HDDs we can't run Windows and any other software on them. I converted them to Chrome OS and well over half are dead and don't work and there is no extended warranty.

 

But most importantly was hundreds of Amazon Fire Tablets.

Once I resumed work again after recovering, I advised that we would need to try and get these devices added to an MDM to manage them and I was told repeatedly, we didn't have the funds to do so.

I explained, there is not the time and resources to individually manage that number of devices. The devices are junk as far as I am concerened, they will not run the iOS apps we have on the iPads. The SLT bought them without looking at what they could actually be used for and it was a total waste of tax payer money all because of the covid panic that nobody could get hold of IT hardware.

 

Every single year since the purchase of these Fire Tablets, the SLT palm them off on another member of staff in the school and tell them that they need to get them working as I made it quite clear, we either get them on an MDM or I am not getting involved.

Some are signed in on parent's accounts, some children accounts, others are signed in as staff. It is a total mess and not something I wish to be involved in unless it is properly managed.

 

The SLT are now demanding that our bursar hand over their Amazon username and password for the school Amazon account such that a poor teaching assistant can manually log in to each of these devices so that apps can be downloaded and purchased. As if it isn't bad enough that all of them are signed in on random people's accounts.

 

Obviuously, the bursar is really concered about this and rang me to arrange a meeting as they are not happy to supply the infomation requested.

 

I would be really grateful on your thoughts but more importantly, some tips on what I can formally wright to the bursar as I have already told the SLT repeatedly we are NOT meant to have non-managed devices signed in with people's personal accounts. These devices should never have been purchased and the ONLY way I am happy for these to be used is with an MDM.

I am very unhappy that rather than listening to the advice of their expert (me) they are again, trying to force another member of our staff to deal with these wretched devices.

 

Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom. I am at my wits' end with this place and on the verges of going off sick as the toxic atmosphere and constant 'we have no money' responses is getting to the point where we are not compliant in so many areas. I really don't like the poor attitude towards IT and the blaming things on IT or me when these kind of things were not suggested or endoursed by me.

I am repeating myself over and over and just not being listened to. Maybe this would be a better post for Devaluing of IT jobs.

[TheHyperTechie]

You're absolutely right, this is a mess. I completely agree with everything you've said. I actually had to set up Kindle Fire tablets once before, for a smaller group of around 20, and even that was a nightmare. There aren't any good Mobile Device Management (MDM) options for them, and they definitely should have consulted with IT before making this purchase.

 

In this situation, (if it was me) I'd recommend collecting all the tablets and refusing to distribute them again until a secure and reliable management system is implemented. If anyone complains, I'd suggest bringing it to your union representative. This kind of situation is exactly why we have them – to advocate for our safety and ability to do our jobs effectively.

 

EDIT - The few devices I set up were password-protected and had a single Amazon account with purchasing disabled (after installing the desired apps). Additionally, a proxy was enabled for student filtering.

Edited June 19, 2024 by HyperTech

[synaesthesia]

Can they be reliably filtered, and the users identified in case of a safeguarding issue? That'll be a big one to make them think - on the assumption the answer is no, then it goes against KCSIE and they are putting students at risk.

They've made a cock up and rather than their hands up and saying so, they're trying to plaster over the cracks until someone else takes responsibility.

[PotNoodleTech]

To be honest the main issues your school faces are not the technical hurdles you describe above but the fact that you have no hope of complying with safeguarding or data protection laws or best practices.

 

Having unmanaged devices with multiple user accounts (home and personal) logging on is a recipe for a safeguarding incident or a data breech and a prime spot in the local newspapers.

 

This alone should be reason enough for your SLT to see sense - if they are not interested in safeguarding or data protection then I guess we'll just have to let the school fail it's next inspection.

[JJonas]

At the very least you need to send a strongly worded email highlighting all of the issues with these devices regarding safeguarding and compliance so when an incident does happen you can point to that email and say I advised you on this and was ignored.

[Koldov]

Amazon Fire Tablets.

 

*snip*

 

they will not run the iOS apps we have on the iPads.

 

I think Amazon Fire Tablets run Fire OS which is a fork of Android, so iOS apps won't work of course.

 

Maybe someone will know if you can get them 'managed' with Google Workspace?

[Pottsey]

I think Amazon Fire Tablets run Fire OS which is a fork of Android, so iOS apps won't work of course.

 

Maybe someone will know if you can get them 'managed' with Google Workspace?

Its unlikely as most Android apps wont work either. Officially you are limited to the Amazon Store apps with no Playstore apps. I am not aware of any worth while MDM that work with Firetablets. There are work arounds with sideloading and manually installing apps but that's not something we want to be doing in an Education environment. Firetablets are designed around Amazon store only with each person having there own Amazon account or family account.

 

EDIT: What we do is have a single account. Set up a family member child account with a pin and use the Fire tablets logged in as the children's account as Book readers for pre downloaded books. Children's profile fully locked down, no browser, no internet just ebooks and audio books.

Edited June 19, 2024 by Pottsey

[TheHyperTechie]

Its unlikely as most Android apps wont work either. Officially you are limited to the Amazon Store apps with no Playstore apps. I am not aware of any worth while MDM that work with a Firetablets. There are work arounds with sideloading and manually installing apps but that's not something we want to be doing in an Education environment. Firetablets are designed around Amazon store only with each person having there own Amazon account or famiy account.

 

This^ they can't be managed by Google Workspace unfortunately.

[JATSO]

We had some given to us by Amazon during lockdown 100 of the things.

 

I did a bit of research came up with a sort of work around but its not an MDM and Google workspace can't manage them well not as far as I can see.

 

I used a tool call Fire Toolbox:

 

https://xdaforums.com/t/windows-linux-tool-fire-toolbox-v35-0.3889604/

 

It strips most of the amazon stuff out.

Allows you to install Google play and some other apps.

 

Other online sites I used were:

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-google-play-store-on-your-amazon-fire-tablet/

 

https://www.alphr.com/chrome-kindle-fire/

 

There is an MDM but comes with a cost:

 

https://www.hexnode.com/mobile-device-management/fire-os/

 

Just a footnote, I never deployed them on mass as we didn't have an MDM and didn't want to pay for it.

 

The images attached are what the fire 7 looks like with the setup that I did you can see what I managed to install.

 

Personally I think its just to much hassle and gave it up as it was taking up too much time.

If a kindle device is setup this way there is the issue of updates for the OS and the security risk it imposes by not getting the latest updates.

Resetting the device reverts it back to a Kindle Fire but they may have a solution for that using the Fire Toolbox

 

 

Edited June 19, 2024 by JATSO

[talksr]

Thank you everyone, all of your posts have been really useful and helped me to construct an email to SLT more than anything to cover myself. I totally understand that money is tight, but we just cannot be cutting corners in the way the SLT are intending.

 

I will let you know if anything further develops. @JATSO thank you for taking the time to explain what you managed to achieve. I have said in the email that we may be able to do something with a small number of the devices but it would not be possible to manage hundreds of them.

 

Thank you guys. Have a good evening.