Below is just a small compilation of articles and discussions we thought might be helpful to educators who would like ideas on how to use the iPad to benefit their students and technology managers who have to support configurations of iPads within their organizations.  We hope you will take the time to share your thoughts and possibly join our Facebook community page.  We will continue to update this page regularly as more information becomes available.

 

Join Our Facebook Community Page

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"iPad Use in Our Classrooms". Join our Facebook discussion.

 

Official Apple Resources

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"Practical advice on iPad deployments" - This blog post offers some advice to teachers deploying ipads.  It mentions some alternative strategies and gives step-by-step instructions for setting up an affordable, practical syncing solution.  Read More

A discussion of Charging Multiple iPads: read more

A discussion of the power requirements for charging and syncing iPads: read more 

Apple has a discussion of the power requirements for peripherals, including the iPad, saying "some Apple peripheral devices may request more than 500 mA (Milliamps) at 5 V (Volts) from a port to function or to allow for faster charging. Such Apple peripheral devices include [the iPad] . . ." read more

There are other discussions of this issue at:
Engadget: read more
and Macworld: read more
 

 

iPads In Education

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From Developing Education - "Carting’ Around iPads; New Storage and Syncing for Education"  Mr. Keenen reviews the new Datamation DS-IP-SyncCharge for use with classrooms that need to charge and sync a smaller number of iPads and don't have the budget or need for the larger solutions currently on the market.   As Mr. Keenen wrote, "The Synccharge can handle up to 16 devices simultaneously and has a handy push-button switch to change from syncing to charging mode.  Each USB port has dedicated power running to it, so it doesn’t matter how many iPads are connected, they are all going to have full data transfer and full-speed charging. In my testing, all iPads charged at the same rate, no matter whether 1 or 16 were attached to the unit., very useful feature.  Overall, I was very impressed with the technology, and having an option like the DS-IP-Synccharge allows for customization or reuse of an older cart with these newer devices".

 

The New York Times took note of school deployments of iPads: read more

 

From iPads in Education we have this new interesting discussion. "This is an alternative high school of 120 students, and their lives are about to change. Actually, I think the students will fly with this better than the teachers. I have ideas of my own about how these (iPads) will be used, but I'd love to hear what some of you think YOU would do.   Reply from Sandy Munnell "Datamation has released a sync/charge station for $1295.00.  It syncs 16 iPads at one time.  Sounds expensive?  Compare to the Bretford cart from Apple at $2600...  Read more  or Click here for quick preview.

 

How To Sync and Charge Multiple iPads

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This was an interesting "solution" that someone tried for syncing iPads to iTunes. It looks like it worked but they called it the "Macgyver" solution because it was put together with duct tape and rubber bands.  read more   If you want to learn more about sync and charge times with these "solutions", click here or "Tech Specs" in the above menu.

 

Interesting Uses for iPads and Tablets

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