Impero, NetSupport or LanSchool

[jayemm]

Ok, so the school where i have taken over as NM has LanSchool and it appears to be a very sound product for the price, but our support has lapsed and I am exploring what other options are out there.

 

The school where I worked before as NM had Impero, starting at V2 which I liked quite alot, but then we were an early adopter of V3 and I was not a massive fan. I havent seen recent developments of V3 so it could be much more stable with more features working.

 

I have never used NetSupport so am very interested in what other people think of this.

 

One key feature must be the ability to have front of class computers see the computers in that ICT suite but the ICT support department be able to see all machines.

 

I am interested to know which product people us for Classroom management and what you like about it and anything you dont like about it. We are not an RM school so their offering is never going to be of use to us.

[Hecate]

We use net support and the teachers like it but they only use about 30% of its functionality which is quite a waste. All they really want to do is view and take control of control pupil computers - particularly blanking all the monitors when they want to talk to the class, block all internet access from time to time and occasionally demonstrate one screen to the whole class. They also like having the logon names displayed on their screen particularly at the beginning of the year when they are just getting to know the class. For our staff the test features, internet black/white lists, etc etc might as well not be there. From out point of view the tech console can be quite useful but it has nothing we can't do by other means

[morganw]

We moved from RM tutor to LanSchool, I considered it to have the best interface of everything that I looked at and the best deployment / automated setup features. Put each room on it's own 'channel', 'channel' 0 views all other channels and it's all configured with group policy. I believe they also added audio chat and a few other features in the newer releases that you may be missing if your support has expired. To be honest though after the problems we had with RM Tutor I would have been happy with anything else that actually worked.

[FragglePete]

We're using Impero here, like you started on V2 with XP but had to adopt V3 early when we migrated to Windows 7.

 

It's matured alot, and we worked closely with Impero to iron out the issues with the early versions of v3. There up to 3.1.02 now and its pretty good; still a few little issues but nothin show stopping.

 

Pete

[machman]

I am a NM in an East Midlands College and I have been using Ranger remote for 7 years or more now and it does exactly what it says on the tin , teachers can take control of the whole class or just one machine , I can also use it from my office to keep an eye on things around the college with a refresh rate of 5 seconds on all clients I rarely miss anything , I have it set up to follow certain Network nosey students if I am unable to sit down and watch , it takes a snap shot every 15-30 seconds or so and I can look at my leisure when I have the time , it can be used to send and receive homework or files or even dish out commands/scripts etc. I find it very useful indeed and saves a lot of leg work at times.

[FN-GM]

I have used both LanSchool and netsupport. My current school uses NetSupport.

 

Personally I think LanSchool is a far better product. It's easier to use and easier to deploy and manage. I have also found NetSupport buggy.

 

If It was upto me I would move to LanSchool