Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Management and pedagogy of iPads in schools

If you are planning on buying multiple iPads for your school you need to do a bit of planning around the management, administration and pedagogical integration of the iPad in your classroom. There are also important issues around licencing of apps. The following articles provide some background information and practical strategies for schools:

Australian Macworld discusses the main issues for schools in iPad goes to School.
..... For starters, how does a school deal with the issue of students putting apps onto iPads? If the iPad is a shared resource, then having students install or remove apps can be a significant problem. Apple’s iOS deployment tools (developer.apple.com/library/ios) can help with locking down elements of the operating system and making it easy to push new apps onto devices using your wireless network.

Application licensing is also a concern. When an app is bought through the App Store it’s only licensed for one user. That means that the practice of setting up one reference iPad, backing it up and then restoring that installation onto multiple iPads will result in breaching the software licensing conditions. Apple is addressing this with a volume licensing program in the United States. There’s no word on when that will be coming to Australia, however.

Where students are allocated an iPad for their own use, life gets a little easier. iOS apps can be added to the school booklist and students can be given iTunes Store vouchers in order to buy apps themselves and set the device up to suit themselves. .......... Read more.


Ringwood Secondary College in Victoria is implementing a 1-1 iPad rollout to its Year 7 students. They have developed an implementation document "Yr 7 iPad info 2011" around setting up accounts and installation of apps. Each
 student
 is 
provided
 with
 an 
iTunes 
card 
to
 the 
value
 of 
$50 
as 
part of 
their 
iPad
 package ,
to 
allow
 an
 individual student account 
to 
be
 created
 and
 apps
 downloaded.

 This
 will 
all
 be 
done 
at
 school 
to
 ensure
 students 
have 
installed 
the
 correct 
apps.

Preparing your school for iPad implementation.

This article provides some really good points about planning for both infrastructure needs and the educational applications of the iPad. It discusses device management and content management and some thoughts around pedagogy. (This article also mentions the volume licensing program which as yet is only available in the USA)

2 comments:

  1. I think that it is important for both teachers and students to have a better understanding of what ipads and ipods can upload and some of the danger the students face if they create or use a specific app. I think that there should also be a block application to all ipads so students know where they can and cant go?

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  2. I feel that state institutions such DET should be raising awareness to teachers and schools of the ways students could upload dangerous or malicious content. Though saying that Ipads, Ipod touches would be fitted with filters just like the filters that are applied at school on desktops and laptops. With Application licensing it would more likely happen that schools would buy bulk licensing and upload it onto the student’s device to cut the cost of purchasing licensing keys individually.

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