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Hi All, I have been tasked with getting 3 tablets for us IT Technicians to use at our school, but I'm a bit stumped on as what would be best to go for. I have been set a budget of £100 - £200 for each tablet and I am stuck as to whether to go for an Android or Windows based device. We have decided between us that we are not going down the Apple route! Just keen to find out what everyone else might have, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks Patrick

Hi There! We're currently running on a CC4 Network here and we're considering our options. Just wondering if CC4 is able to manage Windows tablets and if they do, to what extent? Thanks for your time Geraint.

Good morning Everyone, Our SEN would like to purchase some tablets and have the princely sum of £120 per tab. They would like Tabs over Chromebooks as they want something easily portable and with access to various SEN apps. We are a Google school so ideally we would like to get Chromebook Tabs (yet to find one in that price range however) but my main concern is that staff and/or students wont be able to login to them if they are somewhere out of wifi range. I know that aspects (read apps) can be configured for offline use, but pretty much everything I could find regarding logging in related to a single user rather than a shared device, does any one have any experience in using a shared chromebook device in an area without wifi? Does this work? Alternatively it would be looking at Android tabs, and a few years ago I remember setting up Samsung Tab (6 I think), assigning a policy via Google and setting teachers up on them, but this was for a single user rather than a shared device... So what are your thoughts and opinions on this? Any help is greatly appreciated! Kind regards, Adam Also posted in Netbooks, PDA and Phones

Hi, I'm in need of some advice. We have iPads at school that are given to staff, but they are becoming outdated, some are as old as 6-7 years. I would like to gradually replace these over the next few years as our budget will allow, but am unsure whether to stick with iPads or phase in a new type of device. Other considerations are that we currently have apple TV in a lot of our classrooms and use Firefly as our VLE for which there is a teacher app available for iOS, but not android. I would welcome any thoughts on this and any suggestions as to which devices might be good to investigate. Thanks.

Net-Ctrl is excited to invite you to an exclusive seminar looking at the use of iPads in education. The event is being run by Square Group, a premium apple reseller, who is very experienced in the education space and bring a wealth of experience to the table. This seminar will be focussing on how the iPad can transform both teaching and learning in the classroom, in a way that improves student engagement and results and is free to attend, all you need to do is follow the registration link below. Net-Ctrl and Ruckus Wireless will also be taking part in the seminar and discussing the wireless side of tablet use in education. What you will learn: • Is your school ready for iPad? • iPad in an hour with David Baugh • iPad success stories • Keeping students safe online • Mobile Device Management • The benefits of iBooks • How to finance your schools' iPad solution When Wednesday 16th May 2012 10:00 - 13:00 Where The Wellcome Trust Conference Centre 183 Euston Road London NW1 2BE For directions please click here. Click here to register. We’re really excited for this event and would like to pass the opportunity to attend to everyone on EduGeek, if you have any questions please send me a PM and I will get an answer across to you as soon as I can.

This may not be allowed, and I get that...but I'm trying to get some older Androids (Samsung Tabs) back into service as cameras..I've got 4 that are post-factory reset, asking for previous owner credentials. From what I've been told, these were all donated by a company a fair few years back. Fully functional, outdated, but they make good cameras/video cameras for the kids. So...any suggestions? Feel free to delete the post if not allowed, or reply by DM.. Cheers all.

Hi All As some may/may not know we have been considering tablets for the next round of mobile devices. We currently run a netbook scheme but because of the work load and "less attractive" we are looking at switching to tablets. We have been testing Android 4.2 devices and the choices along with the prices (starting £120+ roughly) certainly makes a more flexible approach. Just wondering if any other Schools have taken the approach of Android devices (preferably 4.2). If you do, What kind of troubles have you faced? If your in the within 100 miles of South East could we visit? How did you find the transition from software to APPs? What kind of Scheme do you provide? - Do Parents buy through you, What about insurance, Repairs and the day to day support. Do you use RealSmart or something similar (It's pretty much a VLE)? Have you created your own APP, if so what for? If you would prefer to PM me instead by all means, I wont use your name/school if you prefer. Not here to cause a stir just would like the above information Thanks

Ah, the joys of vendors and their quaint ideas of market separation and device specialisation. This is the tale of Modern quad core atom Laplets (Hybrid tablets and laptops) and their use of not only the low power CPU but also of the 32bit only UEFI. This fun game manifests in not being able to use 64bit OSs solely because of the vendors choice of junk UEFI, couple that with thei lack of UEFI support for USB NIC and PXE booting and you have a tidy excrement storm. (at this Point I'd like to thank ASUS personally for their contribution with the Transformerbook T100) Now, As it happens there are USB3 Gigabit NICs that work great on the USB ports of these tablets - if not supported in the lacklustre UEFI - and MDT offers LightTouch where you can connect to the share and run lightouch.vbs and set it on its way. This all seems to go fine till the reboot where it spits the dummy as it is trying to use the 64bit Win PE image. What now you say, this 32bit machine is getting the 64bit image, but why? As it happens MDT at least eh one I have just checks the CPU architecture in WMI so sees 64bit, it fails to see the crippled UEFI by companies like ASUS that refuse to fix it so uses not only 64bit PE images but also 64bit EFI boot files. All is not lost, my plan is to edit the Architecture identification to check for: dim rubbishSystemDesign =true which will set the architecture to 32bit if one of these devices is detected. I hope that this will allow me to image them successfully, if not easily and I truly hope that vendors making these pull their heads out and start supporting stuff like PXE if they want their market to truly explode. Other than this rubbish, these devices are epic and can do anything (if at a limited speed) and are perfect for schools wanting to fully use technology. Unfortunately, as usual they are held back by one or two stupid OEM decisions which is the only reason why the Surface Line exists in the first place. I will post back in a few days when I am back in that school and have tried re-writing MDT around this nonsence.

We have a child at school who has severe visual imparments. His main problem is that he has no control over eye movements and find it very difficult to focus on an IWB no matter where he is situated in the classroom. From a schools point of view we are running Windows 7 and have Smartboards. We are thinking along the lines of some kind of tablet that is compatible with our system. Are we going down the right route or missing something complete obvious? Thanks for your help

One of the things that we, as a school are currently considering is a 1:1 tablet scheme. While I am looking to avoid a which tablet is better thread I'm looking to call on the collective wisdom for managing Android devices without having to fork out £££££££'s. There appear to be a couple of free options that are fairly limited in what they can achieve. Meraki and 3CX are the two I have found thus far and while they are able to enforce pass codes and push apps to a device we are not able to control access to Google Play or which apps are being installed. I am aware that there are some parental control apps that can be installed but I would like the situation where I have to touch the device once and then manage any changes centrally. How do others deal with this situation?

Hi all, We have a good 150+ tablets in our school, including a couple of sets of Learnpads and the rest Toshibas with Learnpad software over the stock android. Basically what I want to do is have some kind of system so that when staff take them for lessons or anything else its logged. I've been thinking the best way to do this is use a system not unlike one would use in a Library setting as all I want to know is When, Who and how long (We have problems with them going missing or laying dormant in a draw somewhere for months so to know when they're overdue would save me a lot of time. I've talked to our librarian and the software she uses could be adapted however we only have it licensed for use on one machine and for something like this I'm leaning more toward open source unless the price was very reasonable. I've also been wondering if this would be best achieved with barcodes/QR codes. Let me know if you have any ideas or a system in place like this already Thanks alot!

I work in a primary school and we have 9 x Nexus 7 tablets. I have been able to download Expeditions app but cannot use the app. When launching 'guide' mode the app shuts down. I can launch in 'explorer' mode and detect a guide on the Nexus (am able to launch the guide on a Samsung tablet) but the expedition does not start. I have tried this on both the schools' Dell /Aruba wifi, dual band, and at home just in case there was an issue on the schools network. The Nexus 7 has the latest ios 5.1.1. I would appreciate any advice, we have had a demonstration by a Google representative and the school is very keen to use our own devices. Thanks in advance