Quick Tips for Managing Student iPads in the Classroom

If you have ever hesitated to use iPads in the classroom because you have feared that it would become a classroom management nightmare, then I have a few hints and tricks to enable you to manage and control the content that students are accessing in the classroom.  

NearPod- this free app allows the teacher to control the content that appears on student devices.  Teachers sign up for a free account, create presentations using a variety of content from the web, and have students sign into a student account and enter a PIN to view the teachers created presentation.  There is a video preview of this app available here. 

Guided Access- In the Apple iOS software, the option to lock a student into an app is as easy as activating guided access.  Go into Settings>General>Accessibility and under Learning, turn on Guided Access.  You will be prompted to enter a passcode, which you should keep to yourself.  When you would like to have students work in one specific app for a particular amount of time, triple click the home screen button and select START at the top right hand side of the window that appears.  You will see a notification that Guided Access has been enabled.  Students will not be able to exit the application, unless they have the passcode. You can end Guided Access by triple clicking the home screen button and selecting END.  

Air Drop- With an iPad 4, a WIFI connection, and the latest edition of the iOS7 software, you can push content such as photos or webpages to students.  To activate AirDrop, swipe from the bottom of your device's screen until the control panel appears.  Here, you can tap on AirDrop, select the people to whom you would like to be discoverable, and then decide what you would like to share with students.  In apps that you see the option to share, you can then determine the people you would like to push the content out to based on the name of the device.  This could include photos in your photo app, webpages you have searched out in Safari, or other apps that have the following logo: