CTIDTech

We evaluated these, however as with anything - we thought they may be misplaced, lost etc hence why we went for a PIN for staff. The misplaced bit comes from the amount of times devices have not come into schools when they should have and we had to scramble up a new temp device.

We use a variety of devices (Win, Chrome, iOS and even Android thanks to the covid machines we got) , however for us Office worked best on laptops. As you are not going down the Apple or Chromebooks route, your costs maybe higher, depending on the spec you choose, however we got round this by using ClassLink as a middle wear solution. Teachers, students and other staff can access Office, One Drive, Sharepoint etc from this on any device. This may not be what you are looking for, however from a cost perspective it saved us a shed load of money as we could buy lower spec laptops.

Microsoft cloud outage hits Teams and Outlook users globally (cnbc.com) Maybe linked to this - PS no issues here!

Whatever happened to just the good old fashioned Music lessons I endured - Drums, Xylophone and Maracas?

We used to use Kiosk mode, however we got complaints that Teachers could not customise or adopt/add anything to their classes. Is this something that you need to happen in your school if not you may be OK? We now use ClassLink and add apps to classes, & teachers can add apps from a vetted library or their own links if we give permission so this solved that problem. The other issue this solved is that all the apps live in ClassLink which is the only app I need to add to the tablets. Saved us lots of time and admin!

We use ClassLink as SSO for all users and that allows you to have different levels of MFA for each user group or individual - For this issue, we avoid devices completely as some staff won't use their own - You can choose from image, PIN etc as well as all the MS/Google authenticators too although they require devices. Problem solved and cheap compared to other options. We have evaluated others, however this does the job. I feel; your pain with the devices issue though. We cannot provide everyone with a mobile (even though some asked!!)

If teachers create their own classes, do you have visibility and the ability to manage these too? Add/remove a T/A etc or students?

We use ClassLink at trust level and the support has been great, although we had to negotiate on price -so I would suggest having a conversation with them to see if they can meet your goals. We SSO into every resource (google, purple mash, BrainPOP etc and even websites too) and the user interface saves time in the classroom which was the aim! Another benefit is we don't pay for MIS integration (Wonde or Group Call) anymore as we control the data (it is our data in the first instance) and therefore any MIS integration charge we use to pay is saved as Classlink rosters them all after the rules are created and the application is notified of the change. Finally, it is script free and we can change/amend easily as we see fit. We used to use a variety of tools to achieve these goals previously and these also all fit the bill however one platform just makes it easier for us.

Good luck! Enjoy

Do you have any on-prem AD or wholly Azure? I've seen QR codes work for primary school children, however two options - 1 = authenticating into the device itself and 2 = Accessing the SSO launchpad (on any device - home/school) Which are you looking to achieve?

Made me laugh!