General Advice for Using iPod Touches in Education
The iPod Touches in no way replace the use of ‘normal’ computers. We have 1:1 iTouches, and 1:2 MacBooks. We investigated their use across the ICT curriculum in Tasmania, and found that about a third would be done using Ipods, a third would need laptops, and the other third could be done using either.
Have you looked at Scott Meech’s IEAR (Ipod Education Apps Review) Ning network? If not, do it here —> IEAR
There are a lot of places that list good apps for education. I’m not the best person to recommend them (I’m not a huge user of third-party apps), but have a look at the posts on this page of the iPod Touch Schoolwide forum thread from Classroom2.0 Ning.
Also, elsewhere on this blog, I have listed some. This page also lists other useful things (web apps, mac applications etc).
As far as management goes, syncing is not too much of a problem. On a Mac computer, you can Sync many iPods at the same time. If you set them all up to sync automatically, all you need to do is plug the iPods into your USB hub/commercially produced cart and let them go. I read somewhere that they can do thirty at a time – but I’d keep it to a smaller number – maybe ten or fifteen. It all depends on how much bang your computer has (high processor speed will cope much better!).
We don’t have this luxury when it comes to audio/video, as our students are allowed to put their own music onto them. So we have them set up to “Manually manage music and videos”. This means students can put music or videos onto their iPod from ANY computer by dragging what they want, rather than syncing certain parts (or everything). If the school owns the devices, and students aren’t taking them home, this is not a problem. If students will be assigned their own device, you’ll have to make a decision about personal content.
In a library situation, the Bretford, Tribeam or Parasync carts would be good (but expensive in my opinion). iPods just get placed back onto their cradle, which will keep them charging. I’m not sure if they charge via power point, or USB, though. If they charge via power cord, that would be good, as you wouldn’t need to keep them plugged into a computer (thus syncing every time they get put back into their cradle!). If they charge via USB, you could just make sure that iTunes is not open, and then when you need to sync them, open it. This may need a bit of investigating, as I’m not 100% sure of the logistics of doing it this way. If you read this and know any better, please post a comment!
Make sure you get screen protectors and covers. Many kids/schools use the silicon ones. I prefer a hard plastic one. All can be bought very cheaply on eBay!!!
One alternative to a commercially-produced syncing station would be to buy a hard case with high-density foam for protection:
[This solution was devised by Kate Maccoll, who also supplied the photos. Thanks, Kate!]
As far as app purchase goes, you can purchase an app once, and then sync it to as many iPods as you like. You can also purchase the app on one computer, and then drag and drop the apps out of iTunes to other computers, as long as they are authorised with that particular iTunes account (5 maximum…). This means that paying for an app is very effective. In theory (not so easy in practice!) a $1.19 app can be distributed to 180 devices. Pretty good price! It also means that paying $4-5 for an app, which may seem expensive at first glance, is not costly at all.
At our school, each class has their own iTunes account. I bought two $20 iTunes cards, on special for $30 at Big W, for each class, and set them up. I provided a couple of students in each class with a list of apps that I had chosen, and got them to download the apps to an iMac in their classrooms. These students were part of a group of ‘ICT support’ students, so they were entrusted with the account password, which was also shared with their class teacher.
As far as updating apps goes, you should do it on the syncing computer, not on the iPods. This means that students don’t need to know the account password. My ICT support students do this for their respective classes.
iPod OS updates are large (250ish Mb each time it happens, which is every couple of months). If the school doesn’t have network caching, this is going to chew up bandwidth massively. We use Getbusi to cache certain network traffic, so we need only download these once, and they are then installed to the syncing computer from a LAN copy, not an Internet copy. Saves us Gigabytes every month!
You can also manually transfer the iPod OS updates from computer to computer, to save re-downloading. The file is found in (on a Mac): Users->[username]->Library->iTunes->iPod Software Downloads. Take it from there, and put it in the corresponding place on the other computer.
Teachers can either sync their own devices with the class computer, or copy the class ones to another computer (that has been authorised with the class iTunes account) and also download their own apps using a different account. What this means is that when updating apps on the computer, you need to enter the passwords separately for each account from which the apps were purchased. [Does that make sense?]
If students are downloading content on their iTouches and you don’t want them to, you can restrict access to these features. On the device go to:
SETTINGS->GENERAL->RESTRICTIONS.
Choose a pin code, and then choose the features that you want OFF. I made the mistake of turning restrictions ON for some options (thinking that restrictions ON would restrict those features!) and then had to go and change them all when the students informed me that they could still access the things I thought I was restricting!
You can restrict: iTunes, App Store, YouTube, Explicit Content and Safari (Internet).
For now, that’s about it. I’m sure I’ll think of some other things. If you want some particular information, post a comment, and I’ll respond to it here.
EDIT -> Louise Duncan has posted a great article about video files/formats compatible with iPod Touches.
Visit it here: http://louiseduncan.globalteacher.org.au/2009/11/22/ipod-touch-video-and-audio-tips/
Nice one, Louise!
November 18th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
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November 19th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Hi Deon – I’m going to take issue with your ‘not replace normal computers’ statement. Of course they can’t yet, but I think its already about 65% that they can do, and of course with many other attributes that normal computers can’t do. It depends on the context I suppose – if a school has large numbers of other computers as opposed to those that don’t… Actually my estimate of 65% matches yours of 1/3 on touch and 1/3 both I guess!
All of your advice is great by the way – the basic logistical stuff that people new to the iTouch always need – so thanks for putting it up and I know I will be directing people this way. We have a powered usb hub which we find really speeds up the syncing and charging we do thru it, and I would really like to get one of those padded hardcases!
Ok, continue to have fun!
November 19th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Hey Deon!
Just responding with what we have done. We used the iPhone Configuration Utility for multiple iPods. This allows you to load various configuration profiles. For example with our student roll-out we’ve used this to load a wireless network configuration profile. This then allows the student to take it open, wipe the device and sync it to their personal computer with the profile remaining. A great way of doing this as they are still responsible for controlling the device.
We also have a Griffin charging dock which is great to leave in the classroom if the students devices are flat!
As this is a student roll-out we don’t need to sync the devices ourselves so it hasn’t come up as an issue although I see Apple have a solution for American education environments.
Great concept! (From a technical stand-point)
Cheers, David
November 19th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Hi David
Thanks for the comments.
A question – how do you get students to ensure they have certain apps on their devices, if they aren’t syncing at school?
We have some of the Griffin docks, but they are ridiculously priced ($AU170) for a four-port dock that doesn’t connect to a computer. All it does is charge the iPods. Our USB hubs are much more useful, and allow students to still use their iPods whilst charging. For that price, you could get three 7-port USB hubs. But we have access to plenty of laptops to plug iPods into while in use, as well, so I guess we are a little spoilt!
I’ve just downloaded the iPhone Config Utility. We haven’t had any problems with students erasing wireless configurations etc. Those things are only affected by syncing if you RESTORE your iPod. The students have the WIFI password, so they just reset it themselves, including the school’s proxy server, and other account-based things.
Thanks for pointing this out – I hadn’t seen it before. It will be very useful for us with the iPods that we will own (most of our students own their own iPods, except for our Year 5s who have small class sets).
I’d be very interested in the solution for education environments… any link to info?
Cheers!
November 19th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Jonathon – just to clarify my ‘not replacing normal computers’ statement:
When it comes to creating ANYTHING, the vast majority of our students will opt for a laptop (MacBook). A computer with a larger screen and full-sized keyboard is far more practical for most things that you want to do in a classroom that involve an extended period of time.
So, for the traditional things that computers have been used for (word processing, presentations, blogging, learning objects etc), the iPod doesn’t quite cut it (yet!). BUT it opens up SO MANY MORE opportunities for learning on the go that would be impractical with a larger device – voice recording, quick image editing/manipulation, video/audio viewing/listening ANYWHERE YOU LIKE (this follows your love of UBIQUITY!) are all far more effectively done with a hand-held tool.
It’s interesting that our estimations were similar! A group of us actually dissected the Tasmanian Curriculum, and came up with those figures. So two-thirds of things CAN be done with an iTouch, but some of those would preferably be done with a larger device, in my opinion.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Evening!
At the moment it is limited to a around ~15 iPods in use by one our LOTE Teachers, at this stage I believe the iPods are limited to these classes unless the other teachers encourage/allow the use of them.
As its only a small deployment it is easy to instruct the students to get apps and we only use free applications at this stage and due to our area will probably remain that way.
We’ve used the config so we minimise the distribution of our wireless password and we found its not lost when the device is configured for student use.
http://www.apple.com/education/it-professionals/mac-labs.html
As far as I’m aware most of the those solutions are not available here in Australia but I’m sure we can always find an alternative solution!
So you also know, we do use a thin silicon case, do you use them on student devices?
On the use in the curriculum, I’m waiting for the camera! (I’m still hoping they get released with one into next year, would make it an all-in one solution!)
Cheers, David
November 20th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Aaah… the syncing solution you referred to are the Bretford carts and cases.
I mentioned these in my post. I thought I saw these on the Apple Store, Australia, website, but I can’t find them now… perhaps I was imagining that!
In my opinion, these options are very expensive and can be achieved by being a little creative.
I agree about the camera. But Apple’s marketing division are pretty clever – hence the video camera in the Nano. With the drop in price of the iTouch, the Nano would have become obsolete unless they made it more desirable.
I, personally, find the Nano a great little video camera – but it can’t take still shots, which I would use far more in my classroom at this point. I wonder if the lack of a still camera leaves the door open for the iTouch to get a still camera?
KNowing apple, they’ll probably put a still camera in the iPod Shuffle!!!
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Hi Deon,
Your post about managing the iPod touches was great and will a big help for those starting out. Our management here at Shepparton High School varies. My year 8 class with 1-to-1 iPod touches has the Edupass profile pushed through using the config tool as described. Kids will fiddle with the settings though, and we need to troubleshoot loss of wifi access periodically. This can usually be rectified by adding the user name and password back into the proxy settings. Sometimes the kids run out of internet credit, which gets chewed up fairly regularly. As the kids have special concessions being part of the iPod pilot, we generate tickets with codes they can enter through our Getbusi web management filter to boost it up again.
We use one iMac as the App mothership for syncing apps and sometimes transferring playlists across to the class iPods. The iTunes account here is accessible by the year 8 teaching team and we all add new Apps to the account on this machine regularly. The account is set up on the school credit card, and of course even an App as expensive as $5 or $6 is low cost when distributed to 25 student and 8 teacher devices.
Apps are sometimes purchased as AWARDS (see the iTunes App store) and sometimes deleted by the holding of the finger and deleting instantaneously from a student device.
The Bretford cart is a lovely thing, I played with one in Michigan last month in the Southgate district. But alas, it will never reach Australian shores, as the company does not have the where-with-all to remodel the electrics for the Australian market. I have ordered the Parasync docking station from PARAT, which will arrive in 8 weeks, as our project is expanding in 2010 and the cost is warranted weighed against the time spent syncing using more manual methods.
Studywiz mobile is a boon when it comes to communication, feedback and resource sharing on the device. I am loving the direct audio recording capabilities of the mobile elocker and often drop recorded messages directly into my classes’ shared eLocker for them to retrieve.
Many other students at the school have purchased their own iPod touch outside of the pilot. They come to me to have their name registered and then they head to our technician to have the Edupass certificate installed. They sync to their own accounts at home and have no controls over the apps they have. Their internet access is filtered by GetBusi in the same way as any other device in the school.
Next year we have purchased another class set to be used in the school. I hope that all our year 8s will have iPods next year, mainly purchased by parents but managed by the school.
The lack of camera is no bother to me as images can be downloaded to kids iPods through the shared mobile eLocker once collected from a variety of other locations. I do miss the audio recording though on the Gen 1 devices, can’t really live without that.
Most of my kids struggle with learning how to put their own video content on the devices as they are confused by the formats and conversion procedures. I have a blog post drafted at present that outlines some of these formats, procedures and tools.
Anyway, even though this seems a lot, after managing a class set for almost 18 months now, I am more interested in the HUGE variety of learning strategies that can be applied using the iPod touch. Our school will still deploy 1-to-1 netbooks for year 7s in 2010 though, as it is seen to be the standard for DEECD in Vic and the Digital Education Revolution…