Tips for Sharing iPads in Schools

[Sam Gliksman]

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Excerpted from new book, "iPad in Education for Dummies" by Sam Gliksman

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iPads are designed to be customized for personal use and can be difficult to share between users

iPads are designed as inherently personal devices. There are no user logins or custom desktops for different users as there might be on a laptop or desktop. Many schools however share iPads between classes and students in much the same way that they share laptop carts. Laptops can accommodate different user logins and therefore protect individual student data.

iPads aren't laptops and can't be used the same way. Most iPad apps cache your login information. In other words, once you've logged in, they automatically remember your login information and open your data when the app is opened again. The little love letter or risqué rap lyrics that Joey wrote will pop right up on the screen for the next user who opens the app.

A 1:1 environment is where every student gets his own dedicated iPad and it's unquestionably the preferred model for school use. You'll have to overcome quite a few obstacles if you expect to share iPads between students. iPads just aren't built to be shared. Having said that, there are some considerations that make it a little easier and safer to share them. Here's a few:

• Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. Sharing iPads at lower grade levels is far easier. There's less data produced and the data tends to be less sensitive. In the upper grades, students may be writing papers and keeping notes that need to be kept private.
• Stay faithful to your iPad. Number your iPads and keep a list or spreadsheet to make sure students use the same iPad every time. At least that way, students' data should be available and they're only sharing that particular iPad with a small handful of other students. Also, anything that goes wrong will be easier to track. You can always sticker the outside of the iPad with a number, but another approach is to create a large visible graphic with the respective number and make it the wallpaper for each device's home page.
• You don't got mail. Forget setting up incoming e-mail in the iPad Mail app unless you're prepared to let students see each other's e-mail. Changing e-mail accounts in Mail requires going to Settings; that can get messy and time consuming (although some schools do it that way).
• Access e-mail through the web browser. Many e-mail services such as Google and Microsoft Exchange have a web interface that you can access through Safari. Just make sure to log out when you're done. * Log out, log out, log out. Few apps prompt you to log out when you close them, but many have an option to log out on their Settings menus. Encourage students to always log out (or to sign out, as shown in Figure 1-3) before closing an app or website that requires a login.
• Appreciate the silver lining to your cloud account. Consider saving data to a cloud-based service such as DropBox (which will also need logging in and out). There are simple ways to move content from the iPad to a cloud storage account. On a shared iPad, one practical approach is to use e-mail. For example, some web services, such as Evernote, accept files that are e-mailed to a unique e-mail address the service sets up for your account. You'll still have to delete the files from the iPad, however, if you want to keep the information private.

Sam Gliksman
[e-mail]
Twitter: @samgliksman

 

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Excerpted from new book, "iPad in Education for Dummies" by Sam Gliksman

Available at major booksellers

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