Let me begin by saying that all of the opinions on my site are mine. They do not represent my employer, co-workers or anyone else. Just me chattin’–that’s it!

I live and work in a school district of just under 10,000 students in central Texas. We are about 60 miles north of Austin just so you have a frame of reference.

Our leaders are committed to the best school experience for every child. We want them to learn, to grow, to be able to function in the real world. To that end, we have started putting computing devices in students’ hands. And we allow students to bring their own devices if they have them.

Part of my work this year is to support a new middle school that not only has an iPad for every student to use at school but sends them home with the students. This has been a challenge to implement, as well as a joy to see.

First lesson: Figure out iTunes accounts

We chose to create email accounts and iTunes accounts attached the device instead of the student. That way, we won’t have to set up the iPads every year. Ideally, we would do it just once. (We have seen that students can disable the iPad by putting in too many wrong passwords which causes us to take them back to original settings. A few have done this.)

We purchased JAMF Casper to deploy apps. It can do that. It can let you see what apps are on the iPad and if the iPad is checking in to you network. It cannot delete apps, and the student can remove the profile. If they do, we lock them down and remove their ability to add apps. We also put on a ‘restricted’ profile which reduces the apps they have access to use.

Phew…there is a lot to do. Think through each step for your situation and see what works best for you.