Bev

Students don’t need Apple Pencil (nice as they are) or keyboards. They are very adept with an on screen keyboard. Our costs are for the iPad / insurance and Mdm. The insurance adds the biggest cost. We use almost entirely free apps, the only one we pay for is explain everything. We do subscribe to some websites but these would be the same regardless of device. Google for education is free. Our parents pay around £13/month for a basic iPad.

Is it possible to either stop teachers creating adhoc classes, or to add myself (google admin) to every class? I have classes created by teachers, and then I get asked to add someone else / assist a child etc and I can’t access them. I’d prefer if staff couldn’t create new classrooms, but if that’s not possible I’d at least like to be able to add myself to them!

We initially had a class set of Chromebooks, which to be fair have lasted forever and have been good workhorses, but we went with 1:1 iPads about 4 years ago and haven't looked back. Our teachers use them in lessons, with lots of interactivity between the teacher and the children. Its a very different sort of classroom to what we had previously. I wasn't massively keen but I can see that they are used frequently and they were absolutely invaluable during lockdown. We use a combinations of parental contribution / BYOD and school provided devices. Yes, we have insurance on parental contribution devices. BYOD are not insured. Staff have iPads and access to Windows machines. We use Google Drive / Docs etc which work on the iPads, and they also have regular ICT lessons in an ICT Suite with Windows desktops.

I need to install the lastest version of Lego EV3 software, it's on the MS Store. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/ev3-classroom-lego-education/9p8sjvzm63sz?activetab=pivot:overviewtab Is there anyway to install this for all users?

I can't see Third Party or person_id either. I will get the school business manager to have a look as she has the highest permissions, but I can usually see most things for pupils if not for staff.

That's what I am doing (Vlookup), i was just hoping to generate a report of the SIMS code and UPN but I don't seem to be able to access it.

I am using SalamanderSoft to generate CSV files for AppleSchoolManager. It is giving each student a unique number but it's not a number I recognise. Due to having previously setup my ASM using the UPN, I need to change this number to the UPN and I had assumed it was the Admission Number from SIMS, but it's not. Is it in SIMS or is it just a random number generated by Salamander?

I have had a KVM before, but I quite like this setup apart from the very old monitor

I have a Mac and a PC hooked up to my Monitor, and currently use a very old 4:3 dell monitor as it has a button on the front that just quickly switches between the 2 inputs. I also have a wide screen Fujitsu, but it's a complex shuffle through menus to switch from one to the other. I'd like to get a widescreen monitor, but the ability to easily switch inputs is vital. Can anyone recommend one?

We have three ineo+ printers, which are all linked, so that you print to one and it appears on all three. We occasionally have an issue where for some reason a job fails, and then all the other jobs just back up in the queue and never make it to the printers. As they are all setup as a 'single' printer, there are no other printing options for staff. If I am around, I can delete the dodgy job, but if not it means no one can print all day. Is there anyway of setting the printer to bypass a failed job and just move onto the next one?

We use Jigsaw24, with our insurance and Direct Debit collections through CPU. Our lease is also with CHG Meridian. I am very happy with Jigsaw 24.

I was using an old Mac mini for Apple Configurator, it has completely died and I can't retrieve anything from it. I have bought a new one, and am wanting to set up Apple Configurator on it. Is there a way to setup using the old supervision profile? if I can't retrieve it from the old Mac? Does it matter if I use a new one? Most of the iPads are DEP enrolled, but we do supervise a percentage of them manually. Generally, Apple Configurator is just used to supervise those iPads, and to unlock any that can't be unlocked via the MDM (eg with wifi issues), I normally have to put them into DFU and reset them, so I am thinking that they would just get resupervised with the new profile? Am I missing anything? Can I retrieve the profile from apple school manager?

I don't think so, but the teacher can control who enters, and can remove people from the meeting, and the link is only shared via google classroom.

Actually I haven't done that. I thought it was in the google admin panel, but when I've double checked it's not there. What I have done is stop students from starting meetings, so only teachers can start the meetings and the pupils access them through Google Classroom.

We are also using Google Meet for any conversations with students. We can control who can start / end meetings, and prevent students from meeting with people outside of our domain.

We have periodic issues with the app not showing the teachers completed work, even though I can see it in a browser A delete and reinstall of the app seems to resolve it.

What do you mean? This might be a chance to "re-establish" and ask those questions about "why iPad?" They aren't all in DEP as we have a mixture of leased iPads which are in DEP and BYOD iPads which are supervised and manually added to Lightspeed. It's not too bad as 90 students will be leaving school soon, and we will have 90 new starters who can start afresh with the new MDM. Of the remaining 3 year groups, about 30% are BYOD, so probably around 100 to do manually. The issue with wiping them, is that I don't believe you can do a backup and restore if you are changing MDM and as the are personal iPads (paid for by parents), they have personal apps and information on them.

Thank you, I'm going to arrange a trial and see how it goes. I wish there was an easier way to move 400 iPads to a new MDM but it seems like it's requires a wipe of every iPad.

I currently use Lightspeed to manage 400 iPads, I am not a fan of it and am keen to move to an alternative MDM. I have some experience of Mosyle and Meraki but I haven't used them for 1-1 iPads / Apple Classroom. The company who supply our iPads initally recommended Lightspeed but have now moved to JAMF, which I am completely unfamiliar with. Has anyone got any experience of both Lightspeed and JAMF? And can offer any comparisions? My main issues with Lightspeed: I find it very slow. Not at all intuitive to use No app on the iPad, so you can't refresh from the iPad, or reinstall missing apps from the iPad. You can only install apps by group, so if a single person needs a single app, you end up having to create another group just for that one app.

I have followed these instructions Setting up and Enforcing YouTube Restrictions with Windows DNS to force youtube into restricted mode - that is working well on PCs, and I have GAFE working to approve the videos. However, we are a 1-1 iPad school, and the DNS redirection doesn't seem to apply to iPads. Is it possible to force all traffic into restricted mode? We are using Fortinet, and I have Youtube in 'strict' mode but this doesn't seem to be the same as restricted, and I also have lightspeed MDM but I can't see a way of forcing restricted mode using that either.

I've been waiting 5 days for my last order to be fullfilled - this was only for 1 voucher for someone whose email address was wrong. If I order eCodes and distribute them myself do they come through any faster?

I only have 33 parents, so I have been copying the information off the screen and pasting it into Excel, but it's still 4 screens worth just for 33 parents, so if you are a large school it will be a mammoth task.

You can add 'Relay' to lightspeed mdm, it's a similar price to the MDM again. This will give you websites that have been visited and blocked and the time they were being used. You can also block specific websites. If you don't have access to firewall information then it could be useful, but for me it duplicates the information I can get from our firewall.

We’ve been struggling with this for some time. Relay offers me no more Information than my firewall so I won’t be renewing that. Netsupport provides much more useful information when they are using the specific netsupport browser but no Information in other apps used. Ie if an inappropriate message is sent through iMessage or email we wouldn’t be able to pick that up. Apple classroom is ok when a class is actively using their iPads but it requires a teacher to be looking at the app. I think my issue is we are spoiled with Netsupport on the PC which provides so much information. But we’ve now moved to 1-1 iPad use and there isn’t anything that can offer a similar level of information.

As is so often the case, as soon as I post on here I find the answer. It related to a Meraki account I no longer use, and apparently Lightspeed automatically renew the certificates which is why I can find no reference to it in Lightspeed. I shall leave the question and answer as it may well come up for someone else.