Saturday 21 September 2013

Known unknowns and unknown unknowns!

This last month or so with the iPads has been a "Rumsfeld" time - we have done all the things we knew about, we have sorted (mostly) the things that we knew we did not know (how to use Configurator, how to use Meraki, how to set up and distribute Apps to 150 machines, how long it takes to unwrap and put covers on 150 machines!) and  now we are into the unknown unknowns time.

The first of these was that there was a conflict between Meraki and Configurator over paid apps (see previous post) then we found out that as we were using a shared Apple ID to distribute free apps some of the students had signed into the cloud using this AppleID and were then sharing other things! We've hopefully solved that one.

Meraki also seems to be doing some funny things - the tracking map showed one device in South Wales and one in London when the students (with their Pads) were in Hull! Still working on that one so if any Meraki wizzes are reading this then please do get in contact (p.hopkins@hull.ac.uk)

Next was the fun of trying to get AppleTV to talk to our university's enterprise wifi - they don't think it can be done as there is a subnet problem with the space we have available - we are working on a solution but it might be March next year before it is solved so no Apple TVs for us until this. So we now need to buy 30pin to VGA connectors in order for the staff to be able to show their Pads onto the projector screen.

However we now how devices out there to the significant majority of the students and to quote a tweet from one of the students "I walked down to the corridor through a sea of iPads" so they are being used. Students are starting to find apps and starting to share these so we are still excited and enthused (if also exhausted) after these weeks. Hopefully the little queues of bods with problems will die down - and there is no doubt that we now know more than we did.

Still looking for others out there in HE who are doing things to share the experiences if you have them.

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