As well as the Secondary PGCE students we have purchased another 185 iPads, this time we have gone for the iPadMini. There were a couple of reasons for this choice. Firstly the cost, we were able to look at the higher capacity (32GB) iPad mini for about the same cost as the 16GB iPad2 or the newer iPadAirs; secondly we thought that the size would be more compatible with their use in the teaching rooms and in the other areas and with portability. So, we have now allocated devices to:
- the PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) Primary trainees (about 90)
- a cohort of Education Studies Undergraduates (about 60)
- a cohort of doctoral students (about 20)
- some staff who are supporting these students
2. Technical joys and woes
If you are thinking of issuing devices be aware of the time that it takes to sort the technical issues - just setting up and handing out 170 devices takes hours and hours of work. We do not have dedicated technical support so the two academic researchers on the project are the main technical support - and this eats away at time.
3. Mobile Device Management
We are getting better at using Meraki® as a MDM solution and are starting to learn how to use it to both monitor usage and also distribute apps using the VPP solution from apple (which is much better now a year or so into its use) however tagging students and getting them into the correct groups for management as well as ensuring that they are using the correct Apple ID accounts is again time consuming. Not least that setting up an Apple ID account without a credit card is not as straight forward as it should be. However once you get it going Meraki is a very useful MDM tool.
4. Initial reactions from the students
The initial reactions from the students over the use of the devices has been very positive. There was much delight as the students were getting their devices and they have been using this quite extensively ever since. There is a slow but observable change in both the student and the lecturer practice as the device allows them to:
- Ensure that students have access to pre-reading and lecture tasks allowing for sessions in the university to be more focussed on "talking, discussing and doing" and not reading and note-taking.
- Capturing of data - using the devices to capture video and image evidence of learning and then using this for reflection in the process
- Use of particular apps such as Nearpod and Socrative to change the way that lecturing is taking place
We intend to carry out the first set of student interviews on the use of the device in the next few weeks so we should be able to determine more accurately how the devices are being used.
