Interactive Information Touchscreens to show timetables etc.

[Sharrad]

Good Afternoon,

 

We have recently rolled out Yondr pouches (I know) which means students no longer have access to their phones. (We're not 1:1 either)

 

We're looking for a way to allow students to check their timetables/extra curriculars etc. on kiosk/devices dotted around the buildings. Have anybody come across any software that might do something like this?

 

Ideally they'd be able to walk up to a kiosk, tap their ID card, see their timetable, logout and walk away. Needs to be quick and easily accessible, they can't be stood their logging into M365 to see their calendar.

 

Any suggestions welcome, we can setup kiosks using ChromeOS, iPads, Windows, we're just looking for the software solution really. We have MySchoolPortal, but again the M365 login process takes too long.

 

Best Wishes,

Josh

[mavhc]

Do you need to authenticate them, or can they just search for a name?

[PotNoodleTech]

Wow I've never heared of those pouches before - they look pretty draconian!

[Sharrad]

Do you need to authenticate them, or can they just search for a name?

 

Authentication would be preferable, a searchable list would work but would limit what data we would/could put in the future for privacy reasons.

[Sharrad]

Wow I've never heared of those pouches before - they look pretty draconian!

 

Spending €9m on phone pouches 'unfathomable' - McDonald

[dhicks]

we can setup kiosks using ChromeOS, iPads, Windows, we're just looking for the software solution really.

 

From your description, your pupils have ID cards of some sort - do those work as Mifare cards, i.e. can you waft them over a (cheap - £30 ish?) standard Mifare reader and get a unique code of some sort out of them? If so, a software solution is potentially quite simple - a web server with a login page that waits for a single-string code to be typed in, then shows some content, possibly depending on location of device. Are you installing the hardware yourself? A ChromeOS device should work nicely - quite cheap, easy to manage (with a Google Workspace account), and easy to connect with a USB Mifare reader. A Windows device might work quite nicely too, I don't have recent experience with setting up Windows as a (properly managed) kiosk device. An iPad might be a bit more tricky to get working with a Mifare reader, although I haven't tried that recently either. I'm not sure if anyone sells hardware with a Mifare reader built in, but it might be worth asking some suppliers.

[mavhc]

I'd just export every student's timetable as an html file, have the rfid/nfc reader read an id number, and then navigate to that file

[dhicks]

I'd just export every student's timetable as an html file, have the rfid/nfc reader read an id number, and then navigate to that file

 

I'm thinking the same thing - a simple-enough thing to write (basic Python / Flask webserver, plus export routines for data, I guess somewhere under £2,000 worth of work), but there's several details to sort first. If the timetable (or other data) export can be automated so it updates nightly that would be handy. Ideally, the ID number read by the local reader would need to match an already-recorded value that can also be exported from somewhere, otherwise there might have to be a registering step where each pupil needs to log in with their existing credentials somewhere once, register their ID card, then be able to use the system. A tablet-with-USB-reader-attached setup might not be robust enough for the environment it is to be used in, this school might need some more solid with no cables on show.

[Sharrad]

I'd just export every student's timetable as an html file, have the rfid/nfc reader read an id number, and then navigate to that file

 

I'm thinking the same thing - a simple-enough thing to write (basic Python / Flask webserver, plus export routines for data, I guess somewhere under £2,000 worth of work), but there's several details to sort first. If the timetable (or other data) export can be automated so it updates nightly that would be handy. Ideally, the ID number read by the local reader would need to match an already-recorded value that can also be exported from somewhere, otherwise there might have to be a registering step where each pupil needs to log in with their existing credentials somewhere once, register their ID card, then be able to use the system. A tablet-with-USB-reader-attached setup might not be robust enough for the environment it is to be used in, this school might need some more solid with no cables on show.

Yeaaa, we had thought about in house solutions, we'd be pulling data from SOCS and iSAMS APIs to collate into 1 feed which should be alright. We could build a Powerapp pulling from dataverse/sharepoint list to make it all cloud based but we were really looking to see if there's a prebuilt solution.

 

Putting up Bouncepads with readers mounted to them isn't a problem hardware wise and they look good.