Needs for Education: Multi User iPads

Greg Swanson @ Appsineducation


If Apple were truly serious about integrating iPads into education then they need to implement an overhaul of the iOS to incorporate multi user log-ins.

For the iPad to operate with ease across the board educationally then the attitude that the iPad is a purely personal device needs to be challenged.

On a personal level, I will customise my iPad, making it an extension of my personality and an indication of my personal workflow. I will try out, move and delete apps as they fit into the way I work, how I like to play and how I choose to be entertained.

As an educator I need a set of iPads that I can use with multiple students and even multiple classes. I need students to be able to to customise their own app selection to compliment their learning styles. I need a system where each student has a partitioned space that is their own.

I need them to be able to create, construct, present and then save their own work to their Dropbox or another cloud storage solution. I am aware you can set up more than one email account on an iPad and you can password protect the device so that student are unable to access it without your permission, but this now needs to go further.

I need secure user accounts that also address issues like resource and application sharing. I need to share apps between students and groups of students.

Can the iPad have multiple itunes accounts set up on a single machine or can a single itunes account have multiple users on multiple machines. Surely it is not impossible to have a class itunes account where each student personalises their learning tools to suit their preferred learning style from the collective apps. Each school could develop a library of appropriate apps for the units of work they are studying or even the teaching and learning styles they have decided to model to their students.

If we really want the iPad to revolutionalise the way that our students learn then the Apple juggernaut will need to relinquish some control of the infrastructure (I know this is unlikely but it needs to be said). 

If the iPad is to make serious long term inroads into the classroom than serious consideration needs to be given to creating a reasonable solution for teachers who want to implement and integrate this type of technology.

I love my iPad

I’d love all my students to have the opportunity to use iPads

BUT

I need change first.