Wriggle

[jbratten]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the long post but I was just hoping to get some feedback from people who are "Wriggle schools" or anyone with a similar 1:1 distribution company. 

I am after having a long meeting with Wriggle and during the conversation a few things have just not sat well with me! Anyone, that is with Wriggle know that since last year, the MDM cost has gone up for parents but from what I can gather, parent's are getting a lot less. My main concern is how the books are purchased and distributed. 

Previously, parents went into the Wriggle store and it was a one-stop-shop - they bought the device, cover, insurance, and books. They had the option of finance also. Now there will be two stores rather than one. The 1st will be to buy the device, cover, insurance etc. and a 2nd link to buy the books. On the plus point the lead time to when parents receive the device will be shorter and they will have more time to familiarize themselves with the device but now when they buy the books, the books will be sent directly to the parents from their book distributer and they will have to use the eBook codes from the hard copy of the book and put the eBooks on the device themselves. One advantage is they can stagger buying the books e.g. in line with pay cheques. I am unsure if they can go down to the local bookshop or purchase from a cheaper online book store (I need to look into that one!) but for a parent who is not tech savvy or is not willing to be tech savvy as they have forked out a lot of money for the iPad, MDM etc., I foresee serious issues for myself (time-wise) in September! There will be a new platform "Wriggle Connect Family"  that will have video's to show them on how to upload the books etc., and I was told that it should not come back to me and they can contact Wriggle any time but I am sceptical. 

What are other schools thinking of this new way of purchasing the books- am I missing the advantages? I understand that this will save on lead times and they will have more time for technical queries etc., but selfishly I foresee issues for myself as I have already had these type of issues over lockdown.

What are other Wriggle schools thinking of these changes? Is there other companies (I have heard there is one other - unsure of the name) that are dealing with one-to-one devices and how are you finding them?

Thanks in advance.

[Andrew Bates]

Hi,

We've been with Wriggle for the past 7 years and to be honest it's going downhill badly. I don't want to be too negative but it's important to get honest feedback from other schools on these issues.  The big challenge has been their turn-around time, they're very overwhelmed in the last year. We're actively looking at alternatives, mainly Chromebooks and the major advantage will be management of the devices. We reckon it will take less staff time to manage the devices ourselves than to work through Wriggle.

We buy all the books centrally, students get a hard copy and the ebook. I'll have to check with my colleague about the exact details. This required a bit of negotiation with book suppliers but they all bought into it in the end. The hard copies are very useful for studying.

It will be very interesting to hear other people's experiences.

Andrew

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[Jennifer Bratten]

Thanks Andrew. I do feel the service is not as supportive as it once was. Managing the chromebooks coukd be an option but a lot of work also. If you have a team of staff to support you it could work well.

Jennifer Bratten

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[A. Ryan]

Just to play devils advocate, I could imagine problems with books downloading and operating could ideally be placed back within the remit of the book companies. 

Wriggle have traditionally taken on the task of sorting it out (and been duly remunerated ) and maybe it's time to decouple, or else offer it as a separate service. Issues with books might also hinder Wriggle's capability to solve normal iPad issues. 

A few times students have told me that their books don't work and they're waiting for wriggle to get back to them (and driving their parents and teachers crazy). Often it was just a case of a lost login username/password or needed a re-install. Maybe training in some savy students for iPad lunch time clinics! Although they could end up bricking it lol!

The Book companies certainly have a case to answer as the interface can be janky at the best of times ( much of which might be trying to avoid people copying their software, which is understandable). Having to buy the book to get a code is just nuts.

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[Brian O'Mahony (St. Brogan's College)]

Hi Folks,

 

Wriggle is not the issue here. They actually do a great job under great stress since Covid kicked in. I’ve been working with their engineers on a daily basis recently to solve far bigger issues for our school and many more schools.

 

The book companies are the problem. For years I’ve said they need to come together and use a single app for e-books. They are still selling the physical copy of their book along with the code and so therefore making revenue. Multiple e-book apps confuse students and parents and adds to IT personnel workloads. It should be seamless under one app. I think it’s a no brainer for them to consolidate to one single app?

 

Le dea-mhéin/Kind Regards

 

Brian O ’Mahony

 

Príomhoide Cúnta, Comhordaitheoir na TFC / Assistant Principal, ICT Coordinator

 

Coláiste Bhrógáin Naofa / St. Brogan’s College

Cill Bhrógáin / Kilbrogan

Droichead na Banndan / Bandon

Contae Chorcaí / Co. Cork

P72 X259         

 

Teil / Tel: 023 8841120

 

Web:   www.sbc.ie

Email: brian....@sbc.ie

 

 

 

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[Tim Lavery]

Brian,

I agree, I think the issue is definitely more a problem with ebooks - and the idea of Irish publishers moving over to a single app has merit. 

However, this idea has been proposed so many times over the past 2 decades with no results, publishers clearly dont feel the need to do so. 

There is no valid reason that school textbooks can not be made available in the same way as a standard ebook.

Kind regards,

Tim Lavery FRGS FRCGS FLS

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The World Explorers Bureau
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[Chris Reina]

Hi all,

All good points made here.

There are a few issues - many of which drive me crazy.

Since I started deploying iPads to schools over 10 years ago the book issue has been… well, an issue.

Book publishers need to up their game hugely IMHO. As far back as 1 or 2 years ago, some books were still just that… essentially PDF versions of their printed book.

No interactivity, annotation options, video or slideshows.

This to me is a similar situation to print media (newspapers) having to go digital. It’s a space they are not familiar with and that causes them concern from a revenue POV.

However, I feel the solution that has been offered from publishing companies is to sell both hard copy and digital copy. I think this has been detrimental to schools on both fronts. Whilst I can understand the fears around revenue loss - it has done little to help the publishers themselves. (and certainly no help to teachers, schools, parents and students)

Some few publishers have engaged fully with apps/online versions of their books, but these have been problematic given the diverse number of devices the books need to work on. (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, etc.)

Added to this - at the beginning of digital schoolbook publishing - some publishers began to create their books using Flash… only to find Adobe discontinuing it a few years later. (It’s now officially “dead” - teachers take note!)

Brian/Tim - I agree fully - a single app for ALL book publishers would be the ideal solution. Surely there’s a company out there who can see this as an excellent opportunity to develop? It takes the onus off the publishers, they still generate revenue - but it makes it easier for all parties involved. (IT support, teachers, parents and students)

However - I also feel that IT companies have cases to answer.

Their job is to sell devices. Support and training have always been a secondary thought. I say this with more than a small amount of experience directly - and with more than one company.

MDM setup and deployment is a complicated process with a huge amount of factors to take into account. However - management has very little complication associated with it.

Far too often - “sale made - move to next box to shift” - I would (almost) always advocate for management of devices to remain in-house for the school. Setup by all means should remain with the IT company involved.

Training should then be given to the school on how to use the MDM. Any problems encountered can be asked of the IT company (and charged for) but the school should always hold the keys to the kingdom. (eg: Username & Password)

This is the same scenario for websites and web developers. The number of times I’ve had to try and pry Username and Password out of a web dev or IT company…

Of course there are usage cases where this simply is not possible - and that’s fine. But for most schools that require an MDM (usually 20/30+ devices) - there can be someone in the school allocated to maintaining it.

Also (and I understand this) - IT companies love to sell, it’s how they make money. But in my experience - the free MDM solutions are more than sufficient for most.

Hmmm, perhaps that was a bit long and too much of a rant…

It is an interesting conversation - and perhaps could be brought up and the upcoming CESIcon in 3 weeks!

Many thanks!

Chris

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[A. Ryan]

As regards Publishers all using the same app, I'd say it's a big NO. They'd probably see the interactivity and presentation of their own app as something which separates them from the competition. 

It would be so much easier if it were just a One-note file or PDF to download but that would be game-over in terms of pirating.

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[Danny Murray]

I'm with Chis completely in that MDMs should be run in-house.

Not to single out Wriggle but a child who forgets their 4 digit unlock should NOT have to go to a courier and be sent to Ballyfermot just to get unlocked or reset. That should take minutes to fix, not weeks.

That said, I do understand why they "have to do it that way" and it's an inevitable scaling issue. It's the same thing with 02 a few years ago. We'd have to log a ticket with their helpdesk just to reset a password or setup a new account (and we were getting charged for each of these "callouts"). We do that ourselves now but only because we've staff willing to learn.

That model of "we'll do it all for you" I think is extremely hard to actually pull off, maybe actually impossible. The second you provide that magical service, everyone signs up and your service wait times spiral. You become a victim of your own success. Password resets and every day problems need to be done in school by someone the students know and not via a virtual helpdesk.

Our school of 700 in England had 2 full time IT staff. They replaced my PC within 5 minutes of it going down in the middle of a lesson and I was back up and running straight away. My "help ticket" went 2 doors down the corridor to Mike and Kevin . They did all the proper safety and cable management when replacing it too. Why is that impossible for Irish schools? The average school size in Ireland is 986 students and about 100 staff. What kind of charity, organisation or business in 2021 has over 1000 people with absolutely no full time IT staff? It's beyond ridiculous. Of course all the students are frustrated waiting in online queues. 

A remote helpdesk is a bad answer to the wrong question.

With regard to ebooks, they're always going to be problematic as long as system updates area thing. There are 1 billion active Apple Devices in the world. Even if 100, 000 of them used an Irish Book Publisher App, that's 0.01% of Apple's user base. They don't loose sleep about breaking Edco/Folens/educate apps with every update. You can't really blame them.

Standards like PDF and browser based stuff is the only reliable way to go. A lot more of those 1 billion devices run webpages/PDFs and they absolutely NEED to work for all of those users. If Apple or Google break webpages with an update... even they'll go out of business.

On Fri, 5 Feb 2021 at 12:47, jbratten <jbra...@cnocmhuiregranard.ie> wrote:

[Mike Carter]

Echo Danny and Chris local management done properly is far more effective and controllable.

Kind regards

Mike

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[Nicola Elliott]

With you on this.  In house management the way to go.  I find the publishers excellent by the way.  I deal with them directly if there are issues.  

Nicola Elliott

ICT Co-ordinator

SCCS

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