Jamf
Jamf School FAQ
General Information
What is Jamf School?
Jamf School ensures students are focused and engaged. It is a powerful teaching assistant that helps guide students through a lesson, allows teachers to provide appropriate apps for school use, and keeps students on track while in the classroom. In the classroom, when teachers choose to use Jamf Teacher, it allows them to do the following:
- Safelist apps used during the lesson;
- Send messages directly to students to provide in the moment, private support;
- Create an attention screen;
- Share links; and more.
All features of Jamf School are only available when a teacher chooses to enable them during their class time. It is removed when the student leaves the class and doesn’t follow them home.
Why are we using Jamf School?
Jamf School is an exclusive Apple solution that helps schools maximize the learning potential of iPad and Mac. This tool gives our teachers and IT staff the ability to ensure students and teachers have the apps they need while safeguarding students and their privacy. Importantly, Jamf School allows teachers and IT staff to suspend access to certain apps or web pages that are primarily used for social media, gaming, and/or streaming services during class time. For example, a teacher can restrict access to Snapchat during class using Jamf School. This eliminates students inappropriately accessing social media and VPNs during instructional time in the classroom which is both disruptive to teaching and time consuming for the IT staff to shut down.
In the past two years, we have seen drastic increases in students using their iPads inappropriately during class (playing games, using social media apps, watching videos, messaging, etc. during instructional time). Jamf School is meant as a solution to focus and enhance in-class iPad use. Jamf School is very similar to Apple Classroom, a classroom device management tool we have used in the past, but due to the mismatch of managed and unmanaged Apple IDs, this was no longer a viable option for us.
What is the Jamf Student app?
The Jamf Student is a free app that allows students access to content their teacher has identified as well as provides in-class supports. With Jamf Student, students have access to the Jamf Library, which includes apps, books, and documents that have been assigned to them. Students can digitally raise their hands and exchange messages with their teachers.
There are also four key classroom management features:
- attention displays a full-screen message from the teacher
- restriction mode prevents students from using any function that is restricted by the teacher (ex. Restricting access to social media apps)
- weblock prevents students from going to websites that are not whitelisted by the teacher
- lesson ensures that students only visit websites and use apps that the teacher configured for them. Students must have Bluetooth enabled to access the lesson.
What is the Jamf Teacher app and what can it do?
- Functions during school days and hours while the student is in Bluetooth range of the teacher device.
- Allows a classroom teacher to easily launch any app, website, or book on every student device at the same time while teaching.
- Allows teachers to group students by topic and launch a different app for each of the groups.
- Using the app in the classroom, a teacher can lock devices to refocus students on the content being taught at that time.
- Allows teachers to lock devices into a single app which especially ensures the integrity of online test taking.
- The “End Class” feature of the app disconnects student devices from the class while class is not in session.
Jamf School does not:
- collect or store any student data.
- require your child to download anything or install any spyware to his/her iPad.
- grant faculty or staff access to any private files on the iPad.
- give faculty remote access to your child’s screen
Who to contact with questions?
If you have any questions, please contact Theresa Allen (tallen@depaulprep.org) or Maggie Eaton (meaton@depaulprep.org). We thank you for your support in the deployment of these innovative education tools.
iPad Drop-off and Pick-Up Information
What do we need to do before dropping off my child’s iPad? Why do we need to do this?
Before dropping off your child’s iPad, please be sure to
- Have the device fully updated to the most recent iOS
- Back up to iCloud iPad backed up to iCloud
- Log out of the Apple ID.
- Have the iPad passcode ready to share with our IT staff.
If enabled, parental controls also need to be disabled. Parents can enable controls again once the iPad is returned. Jamf School will not interfere with any Apple parental controls.
We will not accept an iPad until steps 1-4 are completed. If you have difficulty with these steps please reach out to help@depaulprep.org.
When should we drop off our child’s iPad?
On Monday July 31st or Tuesday August 1st between 8:00 am - 12:00 pm, bring your child’s iPad to the commons. The technology team will have tables set up to collect your devices.
Last names A-M: Monday, July 31st between 8:00 am -12:00 pm
Last Names N-Z: Tuesday August 1st between 8:00 am - 12:00 pm
Devices will be ready for pick up between 8am - 1 pm Thursday, August 3rd.
If you are unable to come at these times, please contact help@depaulprep.org.
Is there a different time to drop off my child’s iPad? My child needs to work on their summer assignments before school starts.
If you are unable to make it to the scheduled device drop-off dates, contact help@depaulprep.org and we can find an alternate solution.
How will you keep our device safe while it is in DePaul Prep’s custody?
At iPad drop-off, students will fill out a Google Form with their name, school email address, device serial number, and passcode. When completed, this form will be sent directly to their school email address. This email serves as a receipt for the device. Upon pick-up, this email will be shown to DePaul Prep staff. While in our possession, devices will be kept in a locked room unless they are being worked on by a member of the technology team.
Additional Information
Will we lose the data/textbooks/Notability notes already on the iPad?
Before dropping off your child’s iPad, please be sure to back everything up. (How to back up my iPad) Although apps may be temporarily removed as a part of this transition, your child should be able to re-install them once the device has been logged back into their personal Apple ID. For this reason, it is important to back up any important items prior to the transition. Any books downloaded from iBooks can always be accessed from the purchase history of your student’s Apple ID and textbooks purchased from BNS can be retrieved on their website.
I’m worried about losing my Notability notes. What should I do to make sure those are saved?
It is good practice to have your Notability notes automatically backed up. There is an Auto-Backup option in Notability settings. This Auto-Backup article from Notability walks you through the steps needed to backup your notes. You can also restore them using this guide. A common issue is not having enough space in iCloud to backup all notes. There are a few options if you run into this issue. You can use Google Drive as your backup option and use your DePaul Prep email address. You can go through your notes and delete all non-essential notes that you will not need in the future or you can purchase additional iCloud storage from Apple.
Bonus: Notability will be free to students.
With Jamf School, students will be provided with free access to Notability (a paid app) and all app updates related to class learning so that students have the most updated application for learning.
Is Jamf School monitoring (security and supervision) software?
No, Jamf School is not a type of monitoring software where we can track what a student is doing on their iPad. Teachers will be circulating throughout the room, physically viewing student work and screens during class.
Additionally, Jamf School cannot see browser history, apps that are open, have access to the camera or collect sounds. Jamf school does have the ability to see which apps are installed on a device, but not any information relating to the usage of the apps. Jamf School also provides a basic location function by using an IP address, which is approximate.
I am concerned about privacy. What data is collected and stored by Jamf School?
Only basic device inventory information—such as hardware, operating system, user and location information, is collected.
I still have security questions.
Please see the Jamf School Security Overview for more information.