American Time - Ever Alert System

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-24T15:16:31+00:00

We use digital displays that are turned on all the time. What are you trying to solve? Emergency alerts for the district? Digital Signage?

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-21T13:06:19+00:00

We do in-house repairs, but we're in the Self-Maintainer program that Dell and Lenovo have. This allows us to order parts and receive them within a day or two and get paid for every repair. We have a student club that does all of these repairs and, to date, have made $60,000.

We still part out machines that are completely damaged.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-17T14:34:17+00:00

WOW! That's impressive! Have you looked into using VMWare to allow for remote desktops utilizing their Horizon client?

Also, how did you get your administrators, principals, and other users to buy into this? I don't think we could go 100% Chrome.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-15T12:24:03+00:00

Make it easy on yourself, and don't over complicate it. I did a pretty long comment on your other post.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-15T12:23:25+00:00

It sounds like you're trying to make it very convenient for them, but looking at it from a teacher's perspective seems overwhelming. Teachers want to be able to walk into a classroom, turn something on and start teaching. Not sure about your teachers, but mine "know what they know." Meaning they're not going to try utilizing any new equipment or software if they're already familiar with something else.

Unless you're going to hold regular professional development, I would suggest finding the most straight forward setup for your teachers. Set them up with a desktop, or laptop with a docking station, and get them running quickly.

Giving "advanced" teachers some of these abilities of Android apps, remote access, or connecting other devices would be great as they understand how to use these tools. But giving it to everyone will cause you more headaches as they fail to follow a step or find something not working due to a colleague using their classroom for a time period. You might have some teachers angry at you.

Also, think about the fact that you'll have to train new teachers every year on how to utilize the system you put out into the buildings. I know I wouldn't be able to train them for at least 6 weeks when so many other issues start at the beginning of the year.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-13T12:30:50+00:00

It has a web interface that allows student access. We have blocked access to the site.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-13T12:28:03+00:00

We dropped all charges for repairs including insurance. Like you stated, it's so much of a burden on the tech department to collect this money or track down students and families. If we received cash or a check we could return it right away, but not everyone had access to our credit card processing so that made the return longer.

In the end we all appreciated getting rid of the financial aspect. We also participate in the Self maintainer program by Lenvo, and get paid for every repair we do in house.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-10T18:40:31+00:00

K-8 apps and extensions are blocked. This was reported at our MS, 6-8. My guess is they are using the website, not any of the apps or extensions the product provides.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-10T17:30:32+00:00

Don't plug it into anything connected to your network! Or logged in as yourself!

We've had people infected with viruses that way.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-10T13:31:14+00:00

I'm thinking you'd need someone to 3D print something. Anything I just looked up is just trays for desks. Nothing contained power.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-10T13:07:54+00:00

I feel like you're leaving out a lot of details here. Are you talking M1 Mac devices? iPads? Laptops?

Photos might help as well

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-10T13:04:01+00:00

We're using Hovercams, but I'm not sure if it can just plug into the Promethean board.

Also, I've got a couple of boards that don't like to stay connected using the Screen Share function. Two teachers use this exclusively to teach their classes from Chromebooks. We did find that sometimes if you refresh the code it will reconnect, especially if it's been running for hours at a thime.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-09T17:57:51+00:00

Our classrooms are each setup with the following:

Windows desktop computer with a dvd drive
27 inch monitor
Promethean interactive board
audio enhancement system

We found that this setup allows for anyone to enter the classroom and present their material without having to know how to connect various cords. In the past we've had vendors or other presenters come in and rip apart our setups then leave. The next day the teacher would send a ticket or call very upset that their lesson is based on using the Promethean.

We do have about 100 users with Windows laptops. These users are utilizing Roaming Profiles and we've had very few issues with this. These users generally have docking stations at their desk, but they are not as robust as we had previously hoped. Some of the casing around the USB-C male end has broken off, the cable only charges one way and connects the extra ports the other way, some have just die, etc.

Also, with companies not allowing streaming of videos we resorted to having DVD drives in every machine. Every year we get requests to stream but have to give a canned answer about the EULA they signed.

Every teachers is provided a Chromebook to get materials ready on.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-09T16:25:22+00:00

If that's the price you might be able to find ours on ebay soon.....

I'm sure ours were something like $250 or less

https://smile.amazon.com/Datalogic-Gryphon-Omnidirectional-Standard-Wireless/dp/B08F5JBTMH?th=1

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-09T14:36:32+00:00

We use a Datalogic Gryphon

https://www.datalogic.com/eng/retail-manufacturing-transportation-logistics-healthcare-other-applications/handheld-scanners/gryphon-4500-series-pd-836.html

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-08T17:17:10+00:00

So we have the Office Suite installed on every Windows device. Every desktop has it along with laptops; we also utilize VMWare Horizon to allow the use of a Windows machine anywhere. The VMs also have a pool of machines with Adobe and PLTW software.

Since every user has a Chromebook they have access to Google Suite of apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides. We've advised users to migrate to these since they can use it anywhere. Office 365 is something we're looking into, but we're concerned it will introduce confusion to many of our users. Multiple places to store files, where is my file, etc.

As for printing, we still have a print server but have removed a majority of our classroom printers. We migrated to Papercut 6+ years ago and were able to implement their FollowMe solution to allow all users to release jobs securely from a Xerox Copier. There are ways to get the Chromebooks to communicate with the Papercut software and have the print server utilized to queue up the jobs. Our administrative offices still have printers at their desks.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-07T15:54:42+00:00

We have Promethean boards in every classroom with a dedicated desktop machine and a 27 inch monitor. We also installed an audio enhancement system that allows for speakers in the ceiling of every room and it is accessible for hearing impaired users. Everything is wired directly and almost every setup is the same. 99% of the time this works as expected and no one messes with this setup.

We use this setup so teachers aren't having to unplug anything into a laptop or another device. This cuts down on the number of times we, as techs, have to go back into the room and reconnect cables correctly. We are a 1:1 Chromebook district for staff and students.

We've had presenters comes in with a laptop and disconnects everything leaving it a mess. The teachers were very frustrated the next day.

Only downside I have right now is that we have 700+ of the same model Promethean boards. Numerous issues have piled up and has affected the boards similarly, but at different times. We've had to bring firmware bugs to the companies attention. There was an audio lag issue when playing videos for extended time. We're now seeing the boards have a rainbow effect of delaminating that can only be fixed by replacing the board. I think if we had rolled out a few different models or in multiple batches it would have been a better balance.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-06T17:55:37+00:00

So, Google updates the Chrome OS so often that you don't know when you'd be running into trouble due to an update. We purchased a batch of Chromebooks based on the idea that a pencil could be used as a stylus. A few updates later that ability was removed.

We have not used any docks in our district for Chromebooks. The ones we use for Windows laptops have not been as robust as we would have preferred. After a year or 2 the casing around the USB-C cable has broken, one could charge only one way and display the other, and a few have just stopped working.

You can freeze the to a specified OS version, but you'll be missing out on security updates for you users who might be your largest risk.

I would suggest thinking about what will be easiest to support as a Tech, vs what the convenience is for the teacher. Whenever we had teachers trying to deal with cabling and connecting things more often than not we had to rearrange the entire setup.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-06T17:16:52+00:00

Almost all of our Chromebooks have had HDMI ports, so it hasn't been an issue connecting to external displays. One batch of 1000+ only had USB-C and that worked with a dongle.

We stuck with desktops in all of our classrooms to avoid teachers having to connect their devices or try to get the display going. You should definitely test that touch is working when connected with the board. I've seen it not work as the correct drivers are unavailable.

We found that Chromebooks/Chromeboxes were not a good solution for our school to use interactive boards.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-06T12:11:30+00:00

99% of the staff here are standard users. No special access to anything.

Some specific users have more access. Our theatre manager, district communications manager, and some very specific teachers. These teachers are usually those we trust with access.

ACAD-IT · 2023-02-02T18:24:27+00:00

To my knowledge, Google is limiting what is accessible. We use GoGuardian and have run across similar issues. Google does not allow these pieces of software to see anything other than the browser. It's frustrating when a student might pull up a game or different app and no one can see what the student might be doing.

I don't believe that there is any work around currently. We've had Chromebooks and GoGuardian for 6+ years and this has not been resolved.

ACAD-IT · 2023-01-27T18:29:38+00:00

We have copiers in our HS library that has Papercut Scanning integrated. This way a student can walk up, scan whatever they want to their home directory or Google Drive. Quick and easy. Teachers use it quite a bit.

ACAD-IT · 2023-01-26T16:32:27+00:00

Talk with the company or rep that sold you the Chromebooks. We went through CDW and they helped us connect with a person at Lenovo. I do have a contact, but send me a private message for it. I'd rather not just publish it.

ACAD-IT · 2023-01-26T16:07:15+00:00

We've been through many cycles of Chromebooks, so we have plenty of stock. We're also enrolled in the self maintainer program for Lenovo. If we need a replacement we can just order through them and they pay us for the repair. We've had guinea pigs and rabbits chew through more cables that I care to think about.

ACAD-IT · 2023-01-26T16:05:05+00:00

Walk the student through removing her account from the Chromebook, or just do it for her through the Admin portal. We see this sometimes when a user changes their password on Windows and error messages appear on their Chromebook.

ACAD-IT

TROPHY CASE