dmj

Something I'm grappling with right now as it happens! Really glad to see this coming to fruition in the edu sector. kudos.

which copilot? https://bbbprograms.org/media/newsroom/decisions/microsoft-copilot

Quick Question about both platforms: Do either offer a hosted MCP server? MCP has been the hottest thing in AI for the last six months and I've found them invaluable. MCP is essentially an interface between the platforms API and your hosted AI agent. The way this works for me is that I authenticate (with my personal creds) to a remote MCP server and then I can use my local AI to ask questions of the API. e.g: "get me a list of the top 100 users with the following attributes, x,y,z. write the output to a google doc". This is a huge thing in (non-edu) tech right now and wondered if Arbor/BromCom are doing this or just reselling their own AI platforms with a large markup? Alternatively, how open is the spec for the API's - writing MCP servers isn't difficult.

Just seen this @dhicks https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2025/06/the-gemini-app-is-now-available-for-all-google-workspace-for-education-users.html?m=1

If you have the patch it will deploy it, but it needs a package manager to know what patches to get, for windows patching it's already covered.

In relation to the OP. A common way to set this up is to use a form of "privileged access management" (PAM, but not to be confused with pluggable authentication module!!). We have this setup where NOBODY has direct write access to production systems. (there are some failsafe accounts for very bad situations). All elevated permissions need to go through PAM, either a command line tool or a GUI. Certain users automatically get their privileges escalated for a set time whereas others need an approval for it and all requests are quite heavily logged. This is quite common outside education. Most changes happen as part of the CD pipelines anyway so it doesn't cause any additional difficulties.

And the same for every other school they setup no doubt

Ansible is opensource, but you can pay Redhat if you want. You can use it as a "push" model by itself, or as a "pull" model using Tower. Works across Windows,Mac and Linux. https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/os_guide/windows_usage.html#installing-updates

actually, It's not all that bad - you do have to be at the KB to press "ENTER". I tried to tell gemini to execute the command and it wouldn't. It appears the voice to speech is a "different" (unconnected) AI, so it still requires the user at the KB.

No it doesn't fingerprint your voice AFAIK, it uses the OAuth from the web application for authentication - so I would imagine a classroom with kids shouting out "give joe bloggs 10/10 for all assignments in google drive" it would likely just do it.

Same old Moodle. It's the best of a bad bunch though. Still less effort than an 0365->Google migration

It's all macbooks/laptops in offices. I'd be interested to hear what the license cost is for gemini in schools. AFAIK Google just upped all our workspace licenses about 6mo ago and then added it "for free" (this is business plus)

We're using gemini for this type of thing. It integrates right into your google drive and uses voice so you can say, for example; "add a meeting at 14:30 and invite x,y,x booking room 1" and it will just go off and do it. This is on a business Google Workspace, so not sure what 'level' you need for Education, I can't imagine it's on the free tier. edit: Infact, just to test it out I took a photo of a load of written down meeting events, uploaded the photo to gemini and said "add to calendar" volia

Sounds like another "We want Google classroom for pedagogy, but all we got is MS teams" thread. There's a moodle integration that would likely fit your needs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/install-moodle-integration

If you're in contract with MS for copilot, why wouldn't you share personal identifiable information with it? Conversely, A google school wouldn't be banning gemini for the same reason as they don't train on your data. What about local models? What about use of MCP?

I think that depends on a couple of things: 1) local models don't send data anywhere, but you're limited by the quality of the model and hardware you have available. 2) The contract with the AI provider. We're in contract with Google for Gemini and they state they don't learn from our data - but the 'free' gemini will. OpenAI and Anthropic are the same (in contract).* The danger is the chatbots that teachers will use without contract IMO. * believe it or not, we (non edu) are actually in contract with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google for AI services. Hedging our bets.

Teacher uses AI to write assignment -> student uses AI to complete assignment -> teacher uses AI to mark assignment Can we get rid of teachers and students yet?

Don't blame you. For £15/month seems like bargain vs running onsite.

Can you go direct to sendGrid / mailchimp et al? Is running your own smtp out of the question?

Agree. 15 years ago it was considered 'radical' for schools to support BYOD laptops, and most of those issues had been solved 10 yrs ago. I suspect the same will happen with phones. I'd like to think the govt might help with that, but the press/public are keen to see every bit of technology overly regulated (I'm thinking from bicycles on pavements to electric scooters to phones)

It sounds like ownership, rather than device size, is the issue. I guess this will be solved when 1) phones can run desktop apps. 2) Schools provide phones for students

here's a good doc about it https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c576be5274a1b00423213/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Computing.pdf use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; recognise acceptable/unacceptable behaviour; identify a range of ways to report concerns about content and contact.

"being responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology" is literally part of the KS2 curriculum already. IMO the problem seems to be that schools treat mobile phones differently than ICT resources, when infact the only major difference is the lack of filtering on the devices

A friend has one and he swears by it. I was tempted but went for a steamdeck and a keyboard in the end.

signal Jammers are illegal, ie sending out data on the same frequency to overwhelm the provider is illegal. A signal blocker, ie a bag, fence or wall is not illegal.