RE: [techies-for-schools] School owned laptop/portable/wireless computers?

[J B]

The difference between byod and school provisioned for us is generally storage space, we have a bunch of the Acer switch atom units with 64 GB, as they are x86 they happily run full W8, can be domain joined and work with mapped drives, printer etc transparently.  32gb is just a bit too small once profiles and such are taken into account even self wiping mandatory ones.

Sent from my Windows Phone

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From: Matthew Strickland
Sent: ‎23/‎02/‎2015 9:58 p.m.
To: techies-f...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [techies-for-schools] School owned laptop/portable/wireless computers?

Hi all,

Is your school still purchasing laptops/netbooks (or other wireless devices) for students to use? If so which are you opting for?

We are still predominantly a Windows school (mostly windows clients and servers), as well as Mac's + Adobe software for both.

This is all fairly 'classic' for the fixed hardware + software.

But we do get stuck with purchasing school wireless devices for students, because ideally they need to be networked to be used by more than one student.

Since we're not a Google App school this rules out multi-user for Chromebooks, and Surface RT is somewhat limited in a domain environment.

So we end up with Netbooks (with extra RAM + SSD are ok) or more expensive traditional laptops.

It seem's were stuck between what's best for BYOD, and what works in a multi-user single device environment.

I have some idea's going forward but keen to see if others still purchase wireless hardware for students, or leave it up to BYOD?

Matthew Strickland

Karamu High School

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[J B]

That sounds rather one sided, Office 365 providers plenty through SharePoint, exchange, Lync and onedrive, you can even get teacher dashboard free for smaller schools now to have it replicate teacher dashboard on gaps.  Both are decent solutions.

Sent from my Windows Phone

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From: Patrick Dunford
Sent: ‎24/‎02/‎2015 3:45 p.m.
To: techies-f...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [techies-for-schools] School owned laptop/portable/wireless computers?

Does that mean you are using Office 365 instead of Google Apps?

 

People need to look more closely at the solutions, because Microsoft’s effort with Office 365 is pretty limited (like Apple iCloud is), and GAFE has a lot more capability.

Although personally, I don’t like any of them.

 

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From: Matthew Strickland

Sent: Monday, February 23, 2015 9:58 PM

To: techies-f...@googlegroups.com

Subject: [techies-for-schools] School owned laptop/portable/wireless computers?

 

Hi all,

 

Is your school still purchasing laptops/netbooks (or other wireless devices) for students to use? If so which are you opting for?

 

We are still predominantly a Windows school (mostly windows clients and servers), as well as Mac's + Adobe software for both.

This is all fairly 'classic' for the fixed hardware + software.

 

But we do get stuck with purchasing school wireless devices for students, because ideally they need to be networked to be used by more than one student.

Since we're not a Google App school this rules out multi-user for Chromebooks, and Surface RT is somewhat limited in a domain environment.

 

So we end up with Netbooks (with extra RAM + SSD are ok) or more expensive traditional laptops.

It seem's were stuck between what's best for BYOD, and what works in a multi-user single device environment.

 

I have some idea's going forward but keen to see if others still purchase wireless hardware for students, or leave it up to BYOD?

 

Matthew Strickland

Karamu High School

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[Patrick Dunford]

I’ve supported both so I know the ins and outs of them, including one school that switched from 365 to Google. 365 was very late to appear compared to Google Apps and the engagement of MS with the compulsory education sector in NZ has been much more limited. Google innovates because they don’t have a vested interest in PC desktop operating systems and server OSs to protect and they are way out in front with Android compared to Windows Phone.

 

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[J B]

When did this get into phones?  They are both decent systems (365 & gaps) and both have pros and cons. Anyway this has gone completely off topic from BYOD/school owned devices.

Sent from my Windows Phone

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From: Patrick Dunford
Sent: ‎24/‎02/‎2015 9:18 p.m.

[Matthew Strickland]

FYI there is some good 3rd party apps being developed especially for teachers using o365, here is one that we plan to implement. Also free for up to 100 teachers - http://www.teacherdashboard365.com/

[Alistair Baird]

We use a mix of student BYOD and school provided ex-lease laptops which students can loan in hardship cases (we have about 20 'pool' machines) but also some classes have surface RT's as we got a good deal about 18 months ago, and a pod of iPads. As we are a GAFE school, it works well, and having a Single Sign On means we can use the non-domain Surface RT devices quite well, as all you need do is have the device logged onto the network with a limited generic account, but as soon as the browser is closed, the Google session is cancelled (a great feature of SSO) and so you can pass the same device around the class and have security of documents.

The drawback with Microsoft products, although they are a great product, the features etc are more for 'advanced' users, and the interface changes vastly between versions. Some uses are still using old versions (word 2000 still out there), whereas GAFE is more simplistic, you can concentrate on the content rather than the presentation. We are trying to get students to learn concepts rather than be familiar with a specific product. We still roll out Office 2013 onto School desktops/laptops. I've yet to integrate O365 into SSO - not sure I want everyone to have an MS account, as well as a Google account. With the latter, it is all automatic with our SMS (Kamar) via AD to create/disable/delete Google accounts. Not sure how much having a skydrive will impact on slow logins, even with mandatory profiles and folder redirection, logging on at the start of a period can consume the first 10 minutes easily.

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Alistair Baird

IT Manager

St Peters College 

p 06 354 4198

m 021 990 259

e bai...@stpeterspn.school.nz

[Patrick Dunford]

How do you integrate Kamar to create Google accounts via AD? I know about the scripts they have for AD, but how does that feed into managing Google Apps accounts?

 

From: Alistair Baird

Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 8:54 AM

To: techies-f...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [techies-for-schools] School owned laptop/portable/wireless computers?

 

We use a mix of student BYOD and school provided ex-lease laptops which students can loan in hardship cases (we have about 20 'pool' machines) but also some classes have surface RT's as we got a good deal about 18 months ago, and a pod of iPads. As we are a GAFE school, it works well, and having a Single Sign On means we can use the non-domain Surface RT devices quite well, as all you need do is have the device logged onto the network with a limited generic account, but as soon as the browser is closed, the Google session is cancelled (a great feature of SSO) and so you can pass the same device around the class and have security of documents.

 

The drawback with Microsoft products, although they are a great product, the features etc are more for 'advanced' users, and the interface changes vastly between versions. Some uses are still using old versions (word 2000 still out there), whereas GAFE is more simplistic, you can concentrate on the content rather than the presentation. We are trying to get students to learn concepts rather than be familiar with a specific product. We still roll out Office 2013 onto School desktops/laptops. I've yet to integrate O365 into SSO - not sure I want everyone to have an MS account, as well as a Google account. With the latter, it is all automatic with our SMS (Kamar) via AD to create/disable/delete Google accounts. Not sure how much having a skydrive will impact on slow logins, even with mandatory profiles and folder redirection, logging on at the start of a period can consume the first 10 minutes easily.

--

Alistair Baird

IT Manager

St Peters College

p 06 354 4198

m 021 990 259

e bai...@stpeterspn.school.nz

[Kevin Whelan]

Google Apps Directory Sync tool I'm guessing

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