Best device to use for Tapestry

[zigzag]

I have just requested a free trial of Tapestry to show my staff before taking the plunge and subscribing. Have been tempted for a long time now, just never been brave enough to take the plunge! I have been looking at your advice and tutorials and it looks fabulous.

I would like to ask which tablets people are finding best for use with Tapestry? We are a Pre-school setting and ideally I would like each key person to have their own tablet which they can use. I was recently visited by a manager from another pre-school who has just started Tapestry and loves it and she was using an iPad. Love to hear what is the easiest and best to use.

Thanks for any help or advice with this. It will enable me to put a total costing for everything together to put before my committee when I tell them this is what we are doing!!

[FSFRebecca]

Hi Zigzag!,

 

This is where we (at Tapestry) are with it all:

 

The main requirement for Tapestry is a reasonable wifi connection if you wish to use mobile devices such as tablets. We recommend a minimum of 2Mbps download and upload – the main reason for this is to facilitate the bandwidth for viewing and uploading videos. (You can test your connection from this page).

Aside from this, we have apps only for Android, iOS and Amazon Fire devices at the moment, although this doesn’t prevent you from using eg. Microsoft Windows 10 tablets with a browser rather than the apps.

iOS version minimum requirement is iOS8.

Android minimum requirement is 4.4 (KitKat).

Amazon Fire minimum requirement is Amazon OS 5 or higher, and only "Amazon Fire" branded devices (not Kindle) that were launched by Amazon after the 30th of September 2015.

We are often asked for recommendations for tablets. If you wanted an Apple tablet we like the iPad Mini as its smaller size means young children can handle it easily if you planned to let them interact with it. We haven't tested all Android tablets as there are so many on the market, however the recent Samsung Galaxy tablets work well, and any other relatively well known brands with the minimum required operating system should be fine. We would suggest picking a device that has an operating system at least one of your staff is familiar with, perhaps through their personal smartphone or tablet usage.

Data entered into Tapestry is uploaded to our servers and by default no data is stored on your device other than the app itself. There is therefore no need to pay more for a device with a large storage capacity unless you specifically opt to save Tapestry media to the device as well or you want to store your own photos or data on there.

With regard to PCs or Macs, for browser access, processor/RAM and other hardware requirements are not that important. Their main minimum standards are:

• Windows Vista or later.
• Internet Explorer version 9 or later
• Modern versions of the Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers will be fine

 

Personally, at my nursery we are really happy with the Amazon Fires they are cheap and cheerful - they are often on offer and can be had for less that £40 a go including a hardwearing cover. They're not as fancy as the iPads, but we have found the cost of the iPads prohibitive - we have 8 tablets for the whole nursery which is 2 in our baby room, 3 in the Toddler room and 3 in the Pre-school room - that has been plenty (it's about 1 between 2 for staff) - we haven't let children use them yet - it's on our development plan for next year to let the children access their own journal, but we haven't decided whether that will be via the tablets or via the browser version.

[nomski100]

I am also going to be signing up for the free trail next week .

Are there any negative views of nurseries that are using it? One of my concerns is that staff will be spending to much time on the tablet and not interacting with children.

One other concern i have is can staff use the tablet to view there own personal stuff...i.e facebook? My understanding is that staff are able to add photos etc of their key children and parents can see these when they log into their account. This means staff need to have internet connection to do this? Looking at the safeguarding of the children, doesn't this mean that staff could send pictures to others? :wacko:

Edited January 1, 2017 by nomski100

[FSFRebecca]

I am also going to be signing up for the free trail next week .

Are there any negative views of nurseries that are using it? One of my concerns is that staff will be spending to much time on the tablet and not interacting with children.

One other concern i have is can staff use the tablet to view there own personal stuff...i.e facebook? My understanding is that staff are able to add photos etc of their key children and parents can see these when they log into their account. This means staff need to have internet connection to do this? Looking at the safeguarding of the children, doesn't this mean that staff could send pictures to others? :wacko:

Good morning nomski,

I'll take your questions in turn:

Staff use the tablets in the room to take a quick picture or make a quick note - they can come back to their note and edit/expand/assess it later (like they would with a post note before they put it in a paper journal) - staff do need reminding, but it is no different to when staff physically wrote a paper 'aide memoire'. Nothing gets sent to parents before is ready to go.

If you have the tablets set only for nursery apps then no, staff cannot look at their own personal things

Staff add photos to children's journals through Tapestry - only relatives linked to that child's account will be able to see them

Yes, you do need an internet connection.

We have written a comprehensive safeguarding protocol which I have attached - this helps you think through how you are going to set up Tapestry.

Come back if you have more questions!