[Ben]

Went to see some friends on Thursday.

One was being issued with an iPad 2 as a teaching aid at his new school. Yes, state schools are issuing iPads!

Another had just been issued an iPad 2 from work where they've rolled them out to everyone.

Now, I love the iPad 2, but even I'm starting to think I'm missing something!

[Hands0n]

Are these iPads being issued with any bespoke or special apps software? I can understand that happening. But if the schools are dishing them out on the basis of "because ..." then it is absolutely crazy and someone needs sacking, very publicly, for wasting funds.

I have seen good use made of iPads with custom apps. At last year's NEC Motorcycle Show in Birmingham the Honda folk all had iPads used to capture visitor details, linked by WiFi to the Honda CRM systems. Within days I was receiving information in the post on precisely the motorcycles that I had expressed an interest in. It was all much more convenient, for me at least, to not have to complete a visitor form on paper. The stand rep did all that while we were chatting away.

Right now, I question their use in schools other than novelty value to capture the attention of the kids. Our old school teachers didn't require any gimmicks other than a loud voice and a good aim with the blackboard eraser.

[solo12002]

Well I can beat that. There is a school in Northern Ireland that has reached a deal with apple to offer ipads on a three year leasing deal at a cheaper rate to childre in that school were they use the ipad to access school intranet upload work etc reducing the ammount of school books they have to carry etc.

At the end of the three years the kids keep the ipads, they are allowed to take them home, they are coveed by insunance and the school has some type of track and wipe software installed on then.

I can see their uses for teaching staff etc, ie with a whiteboard, using wifi to transfer work to them to record puplis at each cllass etc.


http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/22/irelands-wallace-high-school-launches-the-countrys-largest-1-1/

http://gizmaestro.com/30/08/2011/technology/schools-in-uk-to-offer-ipad-2s-to-students/

[DaveC]

A firm of Liverpool Accident Lawyers are giving an iPAD 2 to anyone who has a claim accepted.
Something else to bump up the cost of your insurance

[DBMandrake]

and the school has some type of track and wipe software installed on then.

Unless Apple are allowing schools to customize the OS, they must just be using Find My iPhone with the email settings locked down with parental controls...(to prevent it being turned off)

I wonder what the legality is of the school being able to track pupils iPad locations outside school hours ? Presumably they would only be allowed to do this if the device was reported lost, but there was a recent case in the US where a school blatantly abused the tracking software installed on laptops that students took home - to the extent that they were secretly turning on the built in webcam to spy on them :eek:

[DBMandrake]

A firm of Liverpool Accident Lawyers are giving an iPAD 2 to anyone who has a claim accepted.
Something else to bump up the cost of your insurance
Yes, that is getting A BIT silly...

[Ben]

AFAIK, remote wipe can be done via Exchange... perhaps that's how they've got their setup configured. They may have been issuing them to some of the children, too, I can't remember. I'll definitely be finding out more now term has started!