Friday, November 15, 2013

iPods in the Classroom - Journal Entry- Friday, November 15, 2013

One of my students had been asking me to add books to the iPods. While the other students were working on iPods last week, I did manage to add download some free books. Last weekend, however, I found out that adding them to the iPods cannot be done through Apple Configurator. Also, I was able to download the iTunes U app, but the actual "courses" cannot be added through Apple Configurator either. Playing around with one iPod, I found I could add books and iTunes U courses through iTunes, rather than Configurator. However, these have to be moved into each iPod individually.

I made a backup of one iPod with all the apps I wanted on it. Then, for each iPod, I restored them from this backup. Then, I added the books and iTunes U material to each iPod. Unfortunately, I did not check the internet settings on the first iPod I used to make the backup. So, after this process, the authentication keys for the network that were added to the iPods when I first assigned the iPods through Configurator were lost. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until the iPods were already distributed to students and the IT Dept. and the School Superintendent were in the room. The students noticed they could not connect to the internet, and we tried to troubleshoot getting on the network together. That's when I realized that the authentication settings had been wiped out with this backup I created. At least the students were still able to access the books and the iTunesU material I downloaded, without accessing the internet. They were even able to play some of the games on Spelling City.

Today, I am go to try to go through Configurator, first with just one iPod and see if I can restore the WiFi profile I created. If it works for one, I will try it for all of them. It's a lot of work to get all of this going in a classroom, but I think it it well worth the effort.

This weekend, I also hope to research Doctopus more, so that next week I can have students log into their school Google accounts for the first time and start working on documents through there. I'd like to have a folder/document already set up for each student that the entire class can view and comment on (but not edit). Many of them are really anxious to type some of the writing they have been working on.

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