iPad Configuration for our K12 enterprise · 2 days ago
Hi folks,
I have been asked for this a few times so thought I would share it publicly. Here is how we do iPad rollouts at our school district. We haven’t upgraded to iOS 5 yet so not sure how that will impact things but here goes:
(iDevice = iPad/iPhone/iPod)
We inventory all our IT equipment with an asset tag so the process is based around that:
-Inventory and tag the iDevice, for example – PVNC09300
-Create an email address for the iDevice, i.e. PVNC09300@pvnccdsb.on.ca
-Our email system supports the iDevice Mail App so we set up the iDevice to get email sent to its address
-Setup an AppleID for the device. Set a password convention so that adults can figure out the password from the asset tag but students are not told (e.g. 09300PvncNotReal).
-Apple makes it VERY difficult to setup an AppleID without a credit card so there are a few additional steps.
-Add a credit card to the account as part of the AppleID setup
-Confirm the AppleID email on the iDevice
-Login to the new Apple ID and remove the credit card as a payment method (Very important step!!)
-We also use a service called Airwatch to manage the devices but there is no reason you can’t do mnost of that management manually or with the iPhone Configuration Utility for a small deployment.
After these steps are complete we use our master AppleID (that has my corporate purchasing card linked to it) to gift apps to the devices we want them on. The devices receive an email in their mail app and can install the app over wifi. Our goal with this model was to provision devices that would never have to be synced, they could just use them. One drawback is that in Apple’s current licensing model you could theoretically buy an app once for a single computer and then sync that app to 15 ipads hooked up to that computer, our model is a one license/one device setup which I prefer.
Update – we used this model for rolling out iPad and Proloquo2Go as an AAC device and our SLP’s report that it is working swimmingly.
— Sean Heuchert
Ease into Twitter · 285 days ago
Lots of folks think twitter isn’t for them, the whole microblogging phenomenon is lost on them and believe me, I understand! But before you give up on twitter, please try at least step one of my steps to ease into twitter (it’s taking all my willpower to not rename this blog post to tweaser.)
Good news! Steps 1 & 2 don’t require a login or any personal info and are insanely easy to do.
1. Use twitter search to see what people are saying about a topic that interests you. In the spirit of the election I did a search for “Dean Del Mastro”. In this search I discovered the link to a youtube video of Del Mastro speaking at a pro-life rally and also discovered that there is a common thread to most of the entries in that they end with #ptbovotes, this leads me to step 2.
2. People who “tweet” will often give their tweets a subject, like PtboVotes. These subject threads are used on an adhoc basis for tweeters to make sure that their tweets are grouped with a certain subject. These subjects begin with the pound or “hash” symbol (#) and are called hashtags. The second step is to again use twitter search but instead of a regular search term, use a hashtag to search. Here are a few to get you started:
If you see a hashtag you don’t know you can try looking it up
3. OK, you like what you have read so far so now open an account and join the conversation. Go to twitter.com, click the signup button and post “hello world” with the hash tag #tweaser.
There is lots more you can do with twitter, but this should get you started.
— Sean Heuchert
banning is easy · 300 days ago
Great, thoughtful (and thought provoking) article on 21st century skills…here is an excerpt:
Why Not Ban?
Establishing a purposeful online identity of which one can be proud is an important skill to teach students. Equally important is conveying the idea that being safe and responsible online does not mean hiding your identity, but rather defining it and owning it. After all, If your child is not developing his/her digital footprint, who is? In elementary school students like Armond McFadden are publicly publishing work and engaging in real learning communities about his area of passion, both online and in life. Anyone can begin making a difference and contributing real work at any age.
Original article at http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/world%E2%80%99s-simplest-online-safety-policy/
Found on twitter – @tomwhitby
— Sean Heuchert