paulkerton

It depends on whoever the host is (or the first person in is, if it's a Google Classroom Meet). Though with the change from G Suite to Google Workspace, I'm sure they'll have more to announce about the Google Workspace for Education changes incoming at their event in a few weeks about licensing and what happens. https://educationonair.withgoogle.com/events/learning-with-google-2021

Well, we will have to agree to disagree on that, because I used to watch him for a while. I don't anymore.

What platform do you use? Do you have a 1:1 rollout? Can you control what the devices the students have in front of them can access, from home?

Linus. A face so smug and a supercilious attitude to match. I never tire of "Don't recommend channel"ing whenever that face pops up on YouTube. Never trust a man whose opinion is swayed by who this week's sponsor is.

It duplicates your existing Bromcom class groups. You can do test syncs to see how it matches your students against those already in Google. It did 95% of ours without issues, and then I did manual matching on the others. It works very well considering the numbers involved!

Compared to how much a private organisation of a similar size would pay, you're paying a lot, lot less for licensing relatively.

We've had the opposite. Parents wanting them not to be restricted to our domain because they have kids in other schools who are using them, as their school hasn't got equipment to them. Balancing act!

This is going to be crucial. We know who has them, and we can make them useless to keep. The most useful function of all!

Careful on that one. Once upon a time that was true, but since Samsung bought them, a lot of the engineers have left and formed their own company, Austrian Audio. The older models that they've had for decades are still awesome, but Samsung seem to be leaning on the "AKG" label to stick it on any old set of headphones these days. Gotta be cautious!

I've upgraded to the XM3 recently, and they're a fantastic set of cans. The noise cancelling is amazing on them. I did have the previous generation version of the Sony WH-CN710N (the WH-CH700N) and the noise cancelling was pretty good on them. Not as good as the XM3/XM4 but for the price I was surprised how good the NC was. I got those for about £80 three years ago. My Dad uses them now, and he likes them a lot! You can't go far wrong with Sony for the price marks they hit.

Further to this there are a few issues that I suspect/have seen: Fear of change, from SLT to the office staff that use it a lot Comfortable with the familiar (even though SIMS 8 will be a huge change) Feeling that SIMS has been around for nearly 4 decades now, so it's best to stick with it due to longevity LA / Ex-LA support units who still support SIMS sowing fear and doubt about changing. Seen this one a lot. Fear of training requirements. Even though this will happen with SIMS 8 anyway, some people will prefer kicking it into the long grass Business managers clinging onto FMS, and the fact it links with SIMS .net is a big thing for them, so don't want to move the MIS. I think a lot of people think SIMS 8 (whenever it arrives) will be SIMS .net without any further requirements to train staff. A lot of schools are going to be taken by surprise when they see the replacements for .net and FMS I think.

The Android version of Office is pretty much the same functionality wise as the web based version, so there may not be an immediate benefit. I don't know what offline functionality the web based version has though, so that may be a benefit? You can always allow the Office apps through the Play Store, and give them choice. You can download and install them for free, they'd just need to login with their Microsoft account to unlock the full functionality.

The problem is that so many support companies have been bitten hard by providing adhoc help to schools, that they will want a contract up front. When I worked in support like that, we always had schools want that kind of support and then would recoil at the idea of having to pay for it because "we're a school!" The problem did come down to people offering free services, then expecting the third-party support organisations they had to provide support for free too a lot of the time. So whilst you have honest intentions, there are only so many times you can let a dog bite you, before you're wary of all dogs biting you! So you'll find it difficult to find any support on an adhoc level without someone wanting some guarantee of payment in place.

It's freemium, so it all depends on what your needs are as a school. https://www.justmote.me/pricing

The three big ones are: Arbor Bromcom RM Integris We are using Bromcom, and are really happy with them to be honest. All of them have their benefits over each other. It might be worth speaking to each, explaining what you do and seeing if they can give you demonstrations of their tools.

We've used it for two Parents Evenings so far, and are adding a third in a week or two. As its between parents and staff we are asking to leave cameras on where they can find a neutral background available in their living situation, where possible. Where people aren't comfortable with that, they can go on-site if they wish, or turn off the camera. We definitely aren't looking at safeguarding between adults though, that's a curious one.

Oh are they in for a surprise... Warn them of the pitfalls, so you can forward that email back to them when they come back to you with them. The amount of emails they're going to get. The slowness of the interface with over 100 classes...

Why do SLT need to be added to all classes? What is the reasoning?

As a 38 nearly 39 year old that appreciates afternoon naps, sensible driving and Dad jokes, I don't know how to take this... :D

As the 2014 iPads won't get iPadOS 15 when it's released later this year, you might want to assume less than 10 year lifetime on those!

Apparently due in the coming weeks. Though I've since found a connector app from a US institution that is letting pull data over into Bigquery in the meantime, and it seems pretty useful! https://www.landingzone.org/google-connector

If a tablet is what she'd like, and Chromebook is fine, then I highly recommend the Lenovo Chromebook Duet. It's small, but it's a little beast of a machine for what it has inside it. Much quicker than the original Acer Chrometabs that came out. https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/lenovo/student-chromebooks/Lenovo-CT-X636/p/ZZICZCTCT1X

I can get all of that from GAM, so I'm happy to continue that. What I'd really like is the insights into what is being posted. When things are posted. What type of content. Engagement. That kind of thing. Does anyone know any product that could pull that sort of information?

Has this ever launched? It was announced 5 months ago, and I've seen no documentation, nothing in the Admin Console....

It's no different than a phone call, but probably more secure. The conversation itself might fall under GDPR, so you have responsibility to secure that in regards to who you have the conversation in front of. Twilio uses WebRTC so the video conversation is encrypted by default, and if it isn't recorded, it isn't stored. You should be fine, but it's worth asking the provider for their GDPR documentation.