You may remember me from yesteryear. I came asking for advice on what to tell my school's IT guy to convince him that Ubermix was better than Chrome OS (
here). Now a new school year has started, I have a Chromebook sitting on my shelf charging, and I know what went wrong.
Here's what I tried to tell him:
1. Ubermix is easy to use and can easily be restored to factory without messing up personal files
2. Google Chrome can be installed to Ubermix and you gain all of the functionality of a Chromebook
3. The Ubuntu software library has loads of educational software
But that didn't work, and here I am today.
Ubermix needs a few things to be a viable competitor to a Chromebook to small schools: lockdown, remote app install, and snooping.
The Chromebooks make all of these tasks simple. First, lockdown. The school buys the Chromebooks, students sign in with their school's domain name, and they're locked in. Only a reset of Chrome OS can unlock them from the domain name. Students aren't able to sign in with any account other than a school account.
Next, snooping. The school account gives the admin the ability to see
everything that happens on the Chromebook: Internet history, installed apps, etc. The admin can even disable Incognito mode so there's no way to browse the Internet privately on the device.
And finally, remote app install. All the admin needs to do is click a few buttons and a Chrome app can be broadcasted to the entire school.
If Ubermix can include all of these features stock, it will be more acceptable by most schools.