Haptic

Sadly this is something we hear time and time again, I have to agree with @CAWJames - it sounds like the whole organisation would be using a workaround in order to appease a few staff members. One thing we've found to be incredibly useful, try and highlight the people in question, then request some 1-1 time with them. We always find the best way to handle 'blockers' (sorry for the brusque terminology!) is to sit with them alone. Then as we spend time working through the biggest nuisances/time drains/soul crushing aspect of their working week is....it almost always leads to us discovering a way Google Apps can help. Usually after that they decide MS isn't as irreplaceable as they thought. If you want to ask us any questions or the odd tip or two, feel free to PM Joe

We've found that Clevertouch are an excellent choice for functionality and price point - feel free to PM us for info Chris

Thanks @Arthur - we're currently helping lots of Schools in the UK (As well as some in the good ole U.S.A) with migrations to Google and Pilot Chromebook deployments. We'd be more than happy to help anyone that has any questions or would like to speak with other Schools currently undergoing the transformation. Our services are in more detail on our homepage (link in sig) Obviously, as always - our advice is free. We enjoy speaking with Schools due to the fact it's always a learning experience on both sides. We always come away having learned something new, the feedback we receive shows that this is reciprocated. Feel free to PM for more info. Joe

If possible ( as Fortinet Partners) we'd like to throw our hat into the ring for both Meru and Fortinet projects. PM if you'd like to see if we can help Mark

My 2P: an alternative to the MS route (and far better from a collaborative point of view) would be to use a shared folder within Google Drive... attractive option not least due to it being FOC and unlimited storage. Mark

Which Access Points do you use on site currently and how far away is the building? I only ask as if the building isn't too far away you could mesh an AP to serve 8 people in that building - you would lose half the throughput but they could connect to it and you wouldn't need a network point in the building either, just power to plug the AP in. So no need for a point to point link. Just an idea and I know this is available on Ruckus AP's. We see this a lot when facilities add a mobile classroom to the school field or there is one building on site with no network connectivity, but a few clients do need to work from there. I am not by any means saying implement a whole new solution for this issue at all and as we all know (from past posts on the forum) the Ruckus solution is more expensive than Ubiquiti! However, I would look at current features on your existing Wi-Fi set up so as to try and utilise a feature such as this rather then pay for a bridge on top. Hope it helps. Chris

Personally, I've found the youtube channel - Athlean X - To be a hugely useful source of advice and tips on effective workout methods. Jeff Cavaliere FTW Joe

Sorry you have lost me @Brimstone? I agree you would take insurance for the lot rather than replacing the screen yourselves each time at full cost? Chris

ipad minis are around the same price yes? Difficult to do school work on though I would have thought with that screen size? Only really ideal for Primary Schools? I mentioned full sized ipads specifically. Insurance for accidental damage and theft is what I mean. I can appreciate the screen may be covered, but what happens if the device is lost or stolen in your scenario? Do you replace it for them then? Glad to hear you are doing well with your budget @2ilent8cho A lot however are not doing as well. I deal with them on a daily basis. How many pupils do you have and how many devices? Just wondered if you had rolled out a full 1:1 across the whole facility as @san_narula is looking to do eventually, but starting in years 7 and 10. The potential for 1200 x screens to crack or the devices to be lost or stolen may mean insurance is a better idea in their situation and may change your mind. It would alter your business manager's for certain! Just trying to help and hope this does. Chris

I would also suggest the school leasing the devices from a VAR. Then take parental contributions for each device. You can work it on 50/50 split where the parents only pay 50% of the devices cost and the school pays the rest. I have some where the parents pay 90% of the device cost and the school pays the 10%. This means that when the student has the device at home, parents are checking if the device is okay and if the student is using it out of school as they have a vested interest to do so. We find it works very well. In the UK it works slightly differently in that any student who is a treated as Pupil Premium (The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers. Pupil premium funding is available to: local authority maintained schools, including special schools and pupil referral units) then the device has to be paid in full by the school and they cannot request parental contribution. Again, hope this helps, but it may and probably will be different over there! Chris

I have to disagree - currently I would say that Google chromebooks are the easiest to manage and deploy on a 1:1 deployment, especially in education. Microsoft Surfaces cost so much to purchase, as do Apple ipads. They are an expensive way of rolling out a 1:1 deployment. The insurance alone for these types of device will be high as well as the initial cost to purchase. I will never understand that in a time when most complain about budgets, facilities then look at expensive ways of achieving the same end goal as you can achieve with inexpensive devices such as a chromebook. This as well as the word that Microsoft Volume licencing is apparently due to increase in price by up to 25% over the next few years. If you looking at a 5 year IT plan then look at these additional costs. We offer a 1:1 scheme and why it may not be ideal if you are in Australia, we offer a full managed payment portal for payments that is managed by ourselves/the insurance company and not the school. You should be able to find a VAR that can offer this service as part of a 1:1 roll out and this will alleviate the worry both you and your business manager have @san_narula We do offer the 1:1 scheme for any type of device but in my opinion the Google Chromebooks are an easier deployment and are much easier to centrally manage. Not to mention no additional MDM! Have a good look around and if the only reason you are going down this route is because it is all your infrastructure will allow currently or is just how you are set up, then have a look at your infrastructure, nothing lasts forever! Stop "just adding" to the network, take a good step back and look at ways you can achieve the same end goal but for a lot less money over the next 5 years. Hope this helps. Chris

Hi @MikeGreen we're helping a good number of Schools move to Google away from CC4/RM Network Infrastructure. If you think it would help we could always put you in touch with one/some of them to uncover any potential issues/benefits/pitfalls. All is going excellent thus far Joe

We agree with @catshilllearning above - We are Smoothwall Premier Partners, they introduced us to E-Safe last year. This solution is absolutely incredible at safeguarding pupils both on and offline and is helping lots of our Schools become compliant with Prevent expectations/legislation. Feel free to PM if anyone would like more info or a trial of the software. Joe

He most certainly is, not sure how Jolly they've been though

Howdt @sparkeh - we also can supply Apple VPP credit Joe

I played the MP beta this weekend, not happy at all really. The footage on Conan O Brien looked awesome, hopefully the finished product resembles that closely. I agree with Doom3 too, I'm a huge fan of dead space 1/2 but doom should steer clear of the survival horror element (although the jump scares were well placed) i'm set to pre-order, if not for the campaign alone, the gameplay vids thus far look superb and the pace/jib/gore all look spot on. One thing though, I came up against a revenant on the mulitplayer....it was HUGE. I swear they used to be roughly player sized?!?, otherwise when they swung their mean right hook it would have gone way over the head! Joe

Morning All. Here's the review of the event we held last week - it was a great evening that we'll be replicating across the UK over the coming year. Google For Education Event - Review - Haptic Networks Joe

Hi All One of the benefits of being a Google For Education Partner is the ability to provide Chrome Management licences to unlock the full potential of Chromebook deployments in Education. As some of you have already capitalised on, Google had a promo running from 11th Jan - 31st March to provide a free 1 day workshop to any new customer ordering 20+ CDM licences. This has now been extended for Q2 Delivered at your site, this truly is a great value add for any school wishing to learn more about the benefits Google Apps and Chromebooks can offer. More info on our site Free Google Workshop Offer Requirements to qualify: • Transformational Planning Workshop incentive is only available for new customers who purchase 20+ Chrome management or 20+ Google Play for Education licenses from a Google authorised education reseller. • Only purchases from schools, academies, colleges or universities that have not bought Chromebook management licences or Play for Education licences previously will be entitled to this free workshop incentive. • Chromebook management licence or Play for Education licence orders must be confirmed by Google between 11th January and 31st March 2016 to qualify. • The Transformational Planning Workshop for your school must be scheduled to take place within 3 months of the confirmation from Google of your eligible Chromebook management licence or Play for Education licence order and no later than the 30th June 2016. • The promotion is only open to educational institutes in the UK. PM us for more details, speak to your account manager or contact us via the website for more information and we can share the full offer document via drive.

It's an interesting quote from Selina Lo, by interesting I mean 'completely in line with what you'd expect from a US Listed Tech Firm CEO' We've had a partnership with Brocade since 2014 so this heralds good news for us, it will be interesting to see how the acquisition takes shape over the next few years. Our early (and completely unofficial) prediction is that it'll be business as usual certainly until this time next year/2018 - Ultimately with Brocade being (on the world stage) a solid product range that has strong interoperability with other major vendors it's unlikely they'll disrupt the product or the channel in any way. It will certainly work well to raise the profile of Brocade here in the UK however, especially as the SDN and IoT markets continue to expand. If anyone has any questions they'd like to put to us feel free, we'll be certain to keep you updated with developments as they arise. On a side note @sparkeh is absolutely correct, redundant ZD units should be nicely discounted. Also @gomalley if you're experiencing issues with Ruckus support directly, feel free to drop us a DM - Even if you didn't use us for your roll-out we'll still help if we can. Joe

Are you all on the PC - anyone on PS4 and playing?

Hi All One of the benefits of being a Google For Education Partner is the ability to provide Chrome Management licences to unlock the full potential of Chromebook deployments in Education. As some of you have already capitalised on, Google have a promo running from 11th Jan - 31st March to provide a free 1 day workshop to any new customer ordering 20+ CDM licences We wanted to draw your attention to the end date, as this truly is a great value add for any site wishing to learn more about the benefits Google Apps and Chromebooks can bring to your School More info on our site Requirements to qualify: • Transformational Planning Workshop incentive is only available for new customers who purchase 20+ Chrome management or 20+ Google Play for Education licenses from a Google authorised education reseller. • Only purchases from schools, academies, colleges or universities that have not bought Chromebook management licences or Play for Education licences previously will be entitled to this free workshop incentive. • Chromebook management licence or Play for Education licence orders must be confirmed by Google between 11th January and 31st March 2016 to qualify. • The Transformational Planning Workshop for your school must be scheduled to take place within 3 months of the confirmation from Google of your eligible Chromebook management licence or Play for Education licence order and no later than the 30th June 2016. • The promotion is only open to educational institutes in the UK. PM us for more details, speak to your account manager or contact us via the website for more information and we can share the full offer document via drive.

Hi All. As our journey with Chromebooks and Chrome devices continues we are constantly assessing the best vendors in the market to offer security for devices both off and on site. The real beauty of Securly is that although it's ideal for Chromebooks it also works perfectly with Windows, OSX, iOS & Android. Today we're happy to announce that we are Premier Partners with Securly, see full post here In order to showcase the solution in all it's glory we can offer any Edu site Securly completely free of charge for 3 months so you can trial it/test it/punish it yourselves. Some of the basic blurb: Securly is the leading 100% cloud web filter just for schools. Securly offers zero latency with none of those annoying bottlenecks on your bandwidth that can be caused by legacy proxy based appliances. And with no client software to install, Securly truly protects ANY Device ANYWHERE, and can be installed in minutes. Check out the features: • Supports the Prevent Duty, with radicalisation and extremist key word detection • Selective SSL decryption controls search engine and social traffic • Negative Sentiment detection technology alerts on bullying or self harm • Kills zero-day threats like anonymous proxies dead • Supports BYOD and 1:1 programmes more detail - click here Ultimately we'd be really happy to get your feedback on it, our relationship is of a very strong nature so any requests, bug fixes etc, tweaks would be great to uncover and react to. If you'd like to know more please drop us a PM, speak to your account manager or contact us via the site. Thanks for reading Joe

At level 5 also and I am liking it. Didn't have any issues anyone has mentioned either. Definitely overplayed Destiny and it is nice to have something new! Great that a few of my friends have bought it, makes life more interesting for sure. Back on again tonight!

In addition to the above, here's the event registration page Google for Education - Event Invitation - Haptic Networks