Coursework Photos following Mobile Phone Ban

[Smitty]

We have several subjects where the students take photo's of their work to develop a portfolio for assessment,  previously they were given permission to use their phones for this purpose and they could grab a photo and upload to one drive\google classroom in seconds.

 

Now they are no longer allowed to have phones (school has taken an extreme approach to phones) we have been struggling to find a simple solution to the problem. We're getting pushback from the teachers who don't want any additional workload and as ever we don't have a lot of money to throw at the situation.  We've previously banned removeable media (USB drives etc.) which has removed a couple of simple solutions.

 

Best option we've come up with so far are a few tablets with class logins that allow them to take photos and upload them to a google classroom \ one drive so they can retrieve them using their own accounts.

 

I'm assuming we're not alone with this issues and was wondering if anyone else has come up with an answer.

 

Thanks in advance for any input and  suggestions

[timbo343]

Yup, you're not alone. We have purchased some Android tablets which are setup with a specific service / user account and managed through Google Workspace. The service account only has access to Google Drive and Camera where the users pass the device round the class as a shared device and the photos are uploaded to the departmental drive.

 

The drive or folders in the drive are organised at class level and shared out to the class for each student to grab their photo.

 

Would be good to know if there was another way or easier way to do this as always looking to simplify processes. 

[robintech]

We use an iPad logged in with an account like textilesphotos@domain and they email it to themselves, which seems to be the quickest method what with GAL and how well iPads integrate emailing a photo. 

[Rob_D]

 

In a lot of departments we just use cameras. Its easy enough to have them as an exception to the USB storage block.

[TechMonkey]

We have tried to get them to just use digital cameras, but actually it is really hard to get the classic point and shoot basic cameras these days for a decent price.  We have resorted to some cheap android handsets. Looking to maybe set them up as kiosk devices that the pupil can sign into and then have access direct to their OneDrive, and then it will timeout.

[pete]

We just set "use of phone cameras for photography/documenting work" as a managed exception in photography lessons, since the camera they have on them is typically the best camera for the job.

 

If the DfE can add their GCSE results app as an acceptable exception, then actual examined work can be too.

[Rob_D]

1 hour ago, pete said:

We just set "use of phone cameras for photography/documenting work" as a managed exception in photography lessons, since the camera they have on them is typically the best camera for the job.

Which is fine unless you're using phone pouches or lockers.

[jthompson]

I'm just about to deploy the following for our DT department, so that a mobile phone can be used to take photos that are automatically synced to an on-prem network share.

• An Android phone (sans SIM) that's enrolled as a 'Company-owned' device in Google Admin. I guess you could have several if needed.
• The Google account that's used to enrol the device (and therefore is the primary account on the device) is a dedicated one, such as "[email protected]".
• The account needs Android MDM set to Advanced in Google Admin, and will therefore need to have a Google Workspace for Education Plus license assigned to it.
• The phone then has the SyncThing app installed, with the app configured to sync the camera folder of the device to its SyncThing peer(s) over school WiFi.
• An on-prem server then also has SyncThing installed and configured to receive those camera files and place them in a suitable network share.

There may be other ways of doing this. Perhaps an app on the phone for syncing camera files to a suitable Google Drive location?

 

The reason for enrolling it into Workspace with a dedicated account and MDM is in order to lock down the device and enforce app allowlisting, etc.

Edited June 4 by jthompson

[pete]

1 hour ago, Rob_D said:

Which is fine unless you're using phone pouches or lockers.

If SLT can find money for those, SLT can find money for cameras.

[Sirbendy]

We use either the current Samsung droid tabs we have, or I've repurposed outdated ones that were due for scrap - no wifi connection, purely as cameras that I then download to the desired locations.