They’re looking to adopt and are visiting our school to see them in action and ask us for feedback. I made a list of talking points for my recommendations:
- You must train your faculty first. MUST.
- You must have a companion network like MyBigCampus, Moodle, or Blackboard.
- If you can’t integrate all grades at once, don’t get rid of textbooks until all the kids have the iPad.
- Have a departmental sets of loaners to use on a class-only basis.
- The school needs to provide covers or else the damage is immediate and swift.
- eBooks are not all the same and may not be the most economical for an English class. If a kid can’t write or make notations in it, it’s useless (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, FOLGER SHAKESPEARE.)
- So I’m saying: it’s likely cheaper for your department to keep its paperback library and allow BOYB or BYOT for ebooks.
- If you’re going to put a protection client to watch for jailbreaking, put it on BEFORE you hand them out to the kids.
- The school should provide Pages, but do not expect the iPad to be a word processing device. It’s not.
- Be sure your school provides before and after school time and space for kids to use wifi. If you make Internet homework, the Internet-less are at a disadvantage.
I’d add that Edmodo is a great free alternative to Moodle/Blackboard/Etc. - they have an iOS/Android app and also work just fine in Safari.
Save your money unless you’re just...flush it down the drain on ‘ebooks’ with extremely...
I’d add that Edmodo...great free alternative
I’d add that Edmodo is a great free alternative to Moodle/Blackboard/Etc. - they have an iOS/Android app and also work...