Any good alternatives to iPads for school

[CyberNerd]

For example, how you use other software that schools want/need e.g. MIS (SIMs etc)? How a school can limit certain students access to internet? Anything that a normal school wants, not just here's office go with it.

 

We use a published app over Citrix for SIMS. It works rather well on Chromebooks.

Chromebooks work with proxyconfig so internet access isn't an issue.

[SPM]

Just seems like someone wanted to make a post about Google products being awesome and everything else is carp.

 

Here is one for chromebooks. People in schools don't want everything to be internet based as it clogs and bottlenecks the pipe. So offline applications and saving, logging in etc. How is it done?

 

HTML5 (AJAX) applications like Google Docs use minimal bandwidth because they only send up edit keystrokes and only receive data to update the portions of the screen that have changed, and even this is in the form of characters rather than a bitmap. General Internet browsing is also fairly low bandwidth, and downloading of things like images don't happen simultaneously for all users.

 

The things that take up rather more bandwidth is video streaming and remote access. If you want to use Citrix Receiver, RDP, VNC, or Chrome Remote clients simultaneously for a large number of users, and your Internet bandwidth is really low, then you may want to trial it first, or consider local Windows Terminal servers or Citrix servers rather than an Internet hosted solution for Windows applications, a Squid video cache proxy or local media server if you use instructional videos a lot, or aggregate bandwidth from a number of broadband connections. The latter is probably the best solution. However it is unlikely you will need to do this, and you won't have a problem if you use Google apps rather than mass use of cloud hosted Windows apps. Universities use hosted Windows apps accessed by Citrix a lot since it saves having to install apps on and to support students' BYOD laptops, and it solves piracy issues connected to giving out software to students to install on their own client machines.

 

You do need enough to make sure there are enough WiFi access points though. It is worth speaking to Google Domains for education resellers for advice if you are planning a really large roll out.

 

Offline logging in is achieved by caching the password locally, just like Windows laptops.

Edited January 1, 2013 by SPM

[prandelicious]

Great discussion. We're also thinking about getting Chromebooks to replace some of our ageing laboratories. Someone mentioned that it's possible to mount local network drives via ChromeOS, how is this done? Can you point me to a resource that explains this? Thanks!

[SPM]

Great discussion. We're also thinking about getting Chromebooks to replace some of our ageing laboratories. Someone mentioned that it's possible to mount local network drives via ChromeOS, how is this done? Can you point me to a resource that explains this? Thanks!

 

Chromebooks can't mount local Windows network drives, but they can access local web servers or web based content servers like NAS servers sharing files via HTTP or web based course content or document servers like Moodle, knowledgetree, or Alfresco. However, broadband access is generally very reliable in this country and HTTP for document access is low bandwidth, so you can normally outsource these services to external cloud service providers and save yourself the hassle of maintaining local servers. You can also use web based remote access software (eg. Citrix Receiver or Ericom Access Now) to run Windows applications on a local Windows Terminal Server if necessary. It is also possible to outsource Windows application access (Ericom can provide MS Word and Excel for example), but network bandwidth needs to be checked if this is done over the Internet.

 

However Google Apps for Domains is free for education, provides domain emails, domain user management, domain file sharing with user and group permissions, intranet web pages, discussion groups, Google Docs, spreadsheets, presentations etc. and is effectively a no brainer for anyone deploying Chromebooks. Basically it for educational institutions, it gives you the equivalent of a MS AD domain with the same services all for zero hardware cost, zero maintenance cost, and zero software cost (the hardware is Google's servers and is maintained by Google), so it should be the starting point, and most schools won't generally need anything more. see Products ? Google Apps for Education

 

The Google Apps for domains environment and a web based remote access solution for Windows applications is perfect for BYOD as well, using Windows PCs, Macbooks, or Chromebooks work equally well, since installing the Chrome browser gives all the same access and user experience on all devices. This means you can mix Chromebooks for students with their own Windows, iPad and Macbook BYOD devices and use of their own home computers, and the school's own high end PC workstations in the video or CAD computer lab which can allow students access to all their resources on all devices.

[CyberNerd]

Chromebooks can't mount local Windows network drives, but they can access local web servers or web based content servers like NAS servers sharing files via HTTP or web based course content or document servers like Moodle, knowledgetree, or Alfresco.

 

This is what we do: mount our shared drive into moodle so that students can access the resources onto any device.

 

The issue that we have at our school is that students home devices (or BYOD) cannot read the documents that staff create. This is important for homework and for students devices in lessons. An example is that a member of staff creates a boardworks or powerpoint file, but the student cannot access it on their own device. We cannot dictate to parents what device they should buy, so we are left with one or two options: One is office 365 - but this is severely lacking in functionality - particularly in terms of collaboration if staff and students are not all running MSOffice and sharepoint. The other is Google docs which happily integrates with everything (so far). I've yet to see a student bring in a device (blackberry, IOS, Windows, Android,Chrome) that we've not been able to integrate with our infrastructure. Caveate is that we also run Citrix Xenapp for the occasion google doesn't cut it.

[SPM]

This is what we do: mount our shared drive into moodle so that students can access the resources onto any device.

 

Neat. You should be able to create web pages with widgets on Google Sites to do the same sort of thing including file upload, download, sharing, versioning and with access control based on user and groups. You also have access control on Google Apps for Domains to control external access etc. It is worth trying out Google sites, discussion boards, Youtube EDUGoogle hangouts, and some of the other sharing features in Google. There is nothing there can't do with local servers local applications etc. equally well - it is just that it is free for education and so damn cheap because you don't have to pay for hardware and maintenance.

 

The issue that we have at our school is that students home devices (or BYOD) cannot read the documents that staff create. This is important for homework and for students devices in lessons. An example is that a member of staff creates a boardworks or powerpoint file, but the student cannot access it on their own device. We cannot dictate to parents what device they should buy, so we are left with one or two options: One is office 365 - but this is severely lacking in functionality - particularly in terms of collaboration if staff and students are not all running MSOffice and sharepoint. The other is Google docs which happily integrates with everything (so far). I've yet to see a student bring in a device (blackberry, IOS, Windows, Android,Chrome) that we've not been able to integrate with our infrastructure. Caveate is that we also run Citrix Xenapp for the occasion google doesn't cut it.

 

That's the beauty of Google Apps and other cloud apps - you should be able to use Google Docs and all web apps on any device without installing any local apps (apart from a browser) - perfect for BYOD.

 

Remote access really is a must for higher educational organisations where a BYOD policy is used. Citrix Receiver and Ericom Access Now are HTTP based remote access server side technologies, and so perfect for BYOD as access is possible from any device. There is also the Linux Gtk3+ Broadway display server technology which displays what was originally served in X-Protocol in HTTP. Although not quite complete, when complete, it will allow Linux applications of all kinds including desktop applications to be served directly to the network via HTML5. There is also an online version of LibreOffice that does the same. When these come to fruition they will be a huge boost to BYOD it that it will allow remote access from any device to a number of useful free desktop apps including GIMP, Latex, Inkscape, Open/LibreOffice, PDF Split and Merge etc., various video editors, and a huge base of programming and development tools.

gtk+ « Alexander Larsson

LibreOffice Online Prototype - YouTube