ACTIVE Education vs LanSchool

Likelihood to Recommend

Really like the appearance of reporting and the web booking.

Verified User

Professional in Customer Service

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

A scenario where this is best suited is in a large classroom. The problem with education is monitoring students, from elementary to middle to high school students. Students will be distracted easily on technology unless they can be tracked and specific students addressed. As a result, Lenovo LanSchool would be the best option to use in this case in order to actually re-train students to pay attention and to keep them on track in their classroom. Where it would be less appropriate could be in small rooms where teachers can walk the classroom more often. Large classes require a long time to get from one side or one student and around to all of them, in large classes, this works well to help monitor and engage. In small classes, it is easy to engage students on a personal level when there are under 15 students per class. In small classes, this software could still support education with some of its key features, but in large classes and schools, this is the best use case for it.

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Christopher Power

Virtual Enterprise Coordinator/Educator

NYC Department of Education / Francis Lewis High SchoolEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Pros

Separation of payer and the person attending the activity. For example: children incur charges, but the parent is responsible for paying them.
Fast - in our old system there was a delay while customers waited for the system to respond.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Education Management Company, 201-500 employees

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Monitoring computers to see what users need assistance with or seeing what they are doing to determine what you need to do to support the users.
Allowing control of the computer in order to show the user how to do a task they were having difficulties with.
Sharing the screen of another user to demonstrate what to do or showcasing their work.
Allows for restarting multiple computers at once.
Allows communication in a messaging format within the program

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Dianna Wolf

Computer Application and Computer Science Teaher

Bowling Green Independent SchoolsEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Cons

I really like the look and feel of ActiveNet Reporting, but it isn't extremely customizable. Maybe there is something I am missing, but other employees have shared that same feedback.
It would be nice to have the system synchronize with other software we use. (EMS, StarRez, etc.) When planning conferences, we currently have hotel guests and registration that we would like to share information for through each system. Currently it is just double data entry.
Would like to be able to add more resources and details to a room booking and have the corresponding departments be notified of the order/track inventory.

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Verified User

Professional in Customer Service

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Sometimes when "blanking" screens, it interrupts or freezes our student's computers, making them have to start over.
I wish that we could "delete" things from the drop-down "run" menu. Instead, they have to just wait until they eventually get bumped off after not using for a while. I also wish we could have this be the same on all of our classroom computers.
Would be great if it was easier to retrieve files from student computers. Great function, but it is really tedious and complicated to do so.

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Karee Smith

STEM Instructor, Higher Education Coordinator, Curriculum Development, & Documentation Lead

STARBASE MinnesotaEducation Management, 1-10 employees

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Alternatives Considered

ACTIVE Network allowed: grouping of classes, good interface, allowed importing of records, complex payment plans, per class fee structures, user fees, and trial classes.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Education Management Company, 201-500 employees

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In terms of competition, there is no real competition that we have used at the school or find on the market. We use tools such as REMIND, MOODLE, and KAHOOT, but none of them would be a replacement for LanSchool. On the contrary, all of those tools would support what we do with LanSchool because it gets students in the comfort level of using different technology tools to communicate and be successful. Apple has a Remote Desktop tool, similar to LanSchool in most ways. The key difference between Apple's Remote Desktop and LanSchool is that Lenovo's LanSchool has a student app and a stronger teacher platform to use on non-Mac devices. Our school focuses on LanSchool because using it on a PC and on a MAC, it is the same interface with the same fluidity. Teaching students on MACs to use Remote Desktop and on PC's or Chromebooks to use LanSchool would be a misuse of resources and confusing for educators and students. The best system for engagement and student use would be via LanSchool on all operating systems.

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Christopher Power

Virtual Enterprise Coordinator/Educator

NYC Department of Education / Francis Lewis High SchoolEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Return on Investment

Not sure yet.
It is newer to me and my department.
Double data entry which is just extra man hours.

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Verified User

Professional in Customer Service

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Students were more focused knowing I could see all computers at once.
My time was used more efficiently with having access to helping many people without having to go from computer to computer.
Students took pride in what they did knowing it could be shared during class to others.

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Dianna Wolf

Computer Application and Computer Science Teaher

Bowling Green Independent SchoolsEducation Management, 201-500 employees

View all 3 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No