New app today – GraphCalc HD – a graphing calculator
We have been talking about slope etc in algebra so after looking around I found the app “GraphCalc HD”. I worked with it for a while and decided that we should download it to all the iPads. After the students walked into class and had finished downloading the lesson I announced that we would be downloading an app today. I had downloaded the app to the master iPad computer and decided that syncing each to it should be the most effective method. So I announced to the class (just 7 students) “please bring up your iPad and place them on my desk”. I plugged in the first one and noticed that I could not sync the apps – the button was dimmed. I had disabled the iPads app store and I assume that must have disabled the sync option. I changed the setting on the iPad and still the sync option was disabled. OK, I decided that wasn’t going to work so I decided to download it to each iPad. I thought this was a good idea too so that each app would be paid for vs. the master computer sync which doesn’t cause the user to pay for each iPad app synced. In order to do this I had to (on each iPad)
Disable the app download restriction – go to settings, type in password
Find the app in the app store
Download the app – again type in password for iTunes account
Once the app was downloaded we had to back in and enable the restrictions to not allow the downloading of apps. The whole process took about 15 minutes and really disrupted the class. I am sure there is an easier way and I will have to find it.
Note: one student had synced with their iTunes on the computer at home and therefore the wrong account was open and I had to log off etc. We explained that the students should not sync with their computers at home to avoid this.
Given the app download and syncing with another computer issue I wonder whether it is worth regulating it so much. Maybe we should allow connection to another computer as well as opening the app store. From what we have done so far the apps are associated with the account that they are downloaded from and the two can coexist on the same iPad.
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