Mobile Devices

[Dianne C. Tillman]

Are any of you using hand held devices in your schools (specifically tablets)?  If so, how did you decided which tablet to use?

Do any of you have iPads in a Windows network environment and if so, how is that working for you?

We are looking to go the mobile route but are trying to figure out what tablets to purchase.  We have a Windows network.

I would really appreciate any and all feedback on this topic!

Thanks!

Dianne

[Brian Norman]

We have iPads, iPod Touchs and Windows netbooks (not tablets).  It certainly has been a learning experience.  The iPads and iPod Touch are primarily used with apps we have preloaded or websites we know work with the limited safari browser like Study Island (without game support).  Since we are not one-to-one we have found the Google Docs - iPad experience to be less than stellar (we use Office2 HD to access Google Docs).  We decided on the iPads based on availability of educational apps.  The iPads really don't interact with anything on your existing network, so other than connecting to your wireless there isn't much to do there.

Since we are not using digital textbooks at this time, we found netbooks (with a 12" screen) to be a better educational tool for secondary students.  We recently purchased 75 netbooks to use in our secondary English classrooms.  We are still purchasing iPads, but primarily focusing the usage with elementary grade levels and some junior high usage.

If we were going one-to-one and had digital textbooks the iPad is very compelling, however at this time we are still using a mixed environment depending on the need.

I hope that was a clear as mud.

Brian

[Dianne C. Tillman]

Thanks for the info Brian!  It does seem so very difficult to figure out what devices to purchase, when they are changing so quickly, no one really knows how or why they are going to use them in the classroom, etc. 

I do have a few more specific questions for you. iPads, I realize they are used mainly for hopping on the internet - but the user still must authenticate to the network somehow, correct?  They need to be going through the content filter.....can you explain how that is accomplished and do you have any issues with the iPads on a Windows network?

Dianne

[Brian Norman]

At this time we do not force the iPads to authenticate, which means our content filter only records the ip address, which drives me insane.  When time allows I will reconfigure our content filter to force them to log in.  It's a feature our content filter has, I just haven't implemented it yet.

There really aren't any issues as far as the windows network goes because the iPads don't use it.  iPads are a different animal, no profiles, no network logins, no computer accounts, zip.

[Dianne C. Tillman]

Okay, that is good to know about the iPads.  The content is still being filtered even without the authentication, the user is just not able to get the custom content filtering properties (we use Lightspeed here), they would get the default settings.  Ah, I understand. I think I have the capability to have them log into the content filter as well and so that would mean they would not authenticate to the network, but only for the content filtering.

Hmm, do you use static IP addresses for the mobile devices?  We use static IPs for our network. I can see not having enough IP addresses, once we bring in all these additional devices...

Sorry, I am sort of thinking out loud...it is difficult to plan all of this without speaking to others who have already taken the jump!

I am sure I will have more questions.

Dianne

Brian Norman said:

At this time we do not force the iPads to authenticate, which means our content filter only records the ip address, which drives me insane.  When time allows I will reconfigure our content filter to force them to log in.  It's a feature our content filter has, I just haven't implemented it yet.

There really aren't any issues as far as the windows network goes because the iPads don't use it.  iPads are a different animal, no profiles, no network logins, no computer accounts, zip.

[Brian Norman]

With Lightspeed they make an app called Lightspeed browser that I believe can force them to authenicate.  The issue is that it doesn't work as well as the apple safari browser (we have the same issue with the iBoss browser).

No, static ip's become unmanageable very quickly.  You should implement DHCP.  You will have to if you create an open "public" SSID on your wireless network.

Brian