Leasing new iPad minis using DEP and Meraki

Last term we had 100 iPads come off lease and we replaced them with 150 iPad minis.  I posted about the decision to switch to minis here.  Things did not go as smoothly as they could have so here's a few tips if you're about to do something similar:

• If devices are coming off lease, make sure you give yourself enough time to choose what you are replacing them with and to get the finances signed off.
• Give teachers enough time to get all their photos/videos off their current devices.
• If you are wiping your leased iPads to return them or sell them DO NOT USE MERAKI!!!!! Within Meraki's client screen there is an "erase device" button but this does not work properly if you are using "Find my iPad".  It looks like it has erased the device but it won't let you set it up as new.  Instead it demands the Apple ID password for the device.  We sold 40 of our 100 iPads to staff, and fortunately gave out about ten early because those staff came back and told us about the problem.  We then had to set up all 100 iPads again, read the tiny serial numbers at the back of the iPad so we could work out which password went with which device, log on to iCloud, turn off 'Find my iPad' and then log out again.  We were on a tight deadline to return the devices and this added hours to the process.
• Make sure your supplier adds your new devices' serial numbers to DEP asap as they can take 24 hours to appear (in our case we had a hiccup that delayed deployment by a week.  This is the email you don't want to receive "The DEP transaction is suspended with Apple right now as there was an issue with it. It has needed to be pushed through manually at Apple’s end".  I never really found out what the "issue" was, only that the head of Apple NZ got involved and then it went up the chain in the U.S. too.  I'm hoping that this was just teething issues, as we were the first of our supplier's clients to use DEP).

Once our iPads finally appeared on DEP it was very simple to set up the devices wirelessly and a nice improvement over Configurator.  The only drawback is that we can no longer assign a name to the lock screen, instead I've advised teachers to add different wallpapers to each of their devices.  We also had to manually add the name of the device after set-up.

I've always found Meraki fiddly when installing a lot of apps on a device.  Our senior school's devices have 49 apps on them and they didn't all go through immediately.  However we seem to have got off lightly because the last 16 devices had certain apps that would not go through at all.  They were stuck 'waiting' or loading and it was very frustrating.  I ended up taking them home as our IT guru seems to think the problem lies with our connection with N4L (he's doing some techie things to sort that out).  The apps did load up fine at home but it wasn't what I had planned for my evenings!

So that was what I got up to in the latter part of Term 2.  Fortunately I had an assistant to help with the fiddly app-loading process.  We also leased 24 new Apple TVs so they needed to be swapped over as well.  While I was installing them I took the opportunity to enable restrictions so that I could hide the movies from the main menu.  This removes the cringe factor of seeing "Sex Tape" or "50 Shades of Grey" advertised!

Term 3 sees us introduce optional BYOD (iPads) to our Year 5 & 6 students.  I'm sure this will be a learning process as well but I am keen to get started.

Ten Library/ICT Projects for 2015

I have some really exciting projects lined up for this year; the key will be finding time for all of them!  Around about this time last year I posted about what was on the agenda for 2014.  Each of the four things I discussed then will need more work this year, so let's start with those:

1. Genre-fication.  This went really well but I still have lots of posters I want to make as a result of it: lists of what genres our Quick Picks readers could move on to, based on what Quick Picks series they are reading; lists of what new genres would be good to try based on what students already like; top 10 lists for each of the genres to help with selection; signs linking genres to non-fiction...that sort of thing.  But I have also been inspired to reinvent our non-fiction area and make the signage there much more bold and attractive.  
2. Ninja Readers Book Club.  While a big improvement over 2013 I still think I can make this better.  So I'll be trying new ideas, some based on a fantastic session on Book Clubs by Carrie Bouffard at the SLANZA Otago Weekend School last year.
3. e-Books.  I just squeaked in getting this up and running at the end of last year so I will need to work on promoting this with teachers, parents and students.
4. Library Expansion.  Well, this is a bit of an ongoing saga.  First we had issues with the courtyard area we were going to expand into.  Apparently the concrete there is pavement concrete and cannot be built on without the great expense of digging it up and starting again.  Now the funding is up-in-the-air because of unexpected changes to other parts of the school budget.  So I have to be patient, although I am still getting our builder in to quote for expanding into our resource room :)

As it happens I had three more big projects that came along last year that I'll also be working on in 2015:

1. Te Totara Times.  I started this blog last year in order to have student-created content for our school website.  I worked in conjunction with one of our teachers and it went well, but this year I need to find a new teacher to help me and I also have more ideas about what we can do.
2. Storytelling Club.  Building on from my Moustache Potatoes Comic Club and our foray into stop motion animation, I'm keen to combine the two, plus some other forms of digital storytelling, and make a storytelling club.  But with a cooler name.
3. BYOD.  We decided to centrally manage our school iPads (for reasons I set out here).  Wiping 140 iPads and adding them to Meraki was a big job for me at the end of last year.  Now we're hoping to have BYOD iPads in place by the end of Term 1, with each child being able to purchase a discounted set of apps from the school.  This is uncharted territory so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes smoothly.

And now, because I just don't know when to stop, here are my new projects for 2015:

1. Library Skills Sessions.  We finally have enough hours allocated to our library staff that I can run some library skills sessions for our classes.  I'm sure this will be an item on my list for 2016 as I have much to learn about what I should cover and how quickly.
2. Pinterest Boards.  I do already have a few Pinterest boards but I am keen to build these up, especially around picture books that have themes that would be useful for teachers, like confidence, sharing, bullying, being creative etc.
3. Book Fridge.  At the end of last year I noticed that the school was throwing out a fridge that no longer worked.  So I snapped it up and a teacher aide did some wonderful artwork on it (with permission from Scholastic).  Now I need to launch the idea and explain how a Book Fridge works (basically it's a place for students to swap their own books among themselves).

So, a busy, exciting year ahead for me.  I'm also looking forward to attending the SLANZA conference in Christchurch in September.

Why we moved to specified apps and centralised iPad management

Back in 2012 when we introduced iPads to the school we wanted to give the teachers the freedom to experiment with the iPads and download apps they thought might be useful.  All our teachers got a $50 iTunes card, set up their own Apple IDs, and had their iPads configured so if they downloaded an app on one iPad it automatically downloaded it to the other three.

It became clear, however, that this system wasn't ideal.  For one thing, volume purchasing was introduced a bit later but we couldn't really take advantage of the discounts because we didn't know what apps teachers had already purchased.  I ended up doing an app stocktake and found that across our school iPads we had over 600 different apps!

Here are some of the other issues we had:

• Teachers were forgetting their Apple ID passwords and security questions and because they'd been set up personally there wasn't much I could do to help them.  Sometimes iPads had been passed on to new teachers without getting the security question details - for a while you didn't need them for purchasing apps then all of a sudden you did.  That caught us out.
• Teachers were not discussing apps and sharing ideas much.  The huge range of apps across the school meant that you might not find someone else using the same ones as you.
• Some teachers complained that it was difficult to find out which apps were the best ones to use.  They didn't have time to download and compare multiple apps.
• There was no vetting system to assess whether teachers' app choices fitted the school's educational aims.
• By paying for only one app per four iPads we weren't obeying Apple's terms and conditions and paying the developers properly for their work.  Once volume purchasing became available in New Zealand we had no excuses not to.
• Some of the more expensive apps aimed at students with special needs had to be bought for a different iPad every year as the student changed teachers.

For these reasons it was decided that we would move to using school Apple IDs, a specified set of apps and a centralised iPad management system.  We have an App Request Form teachers can use if they have an app they particularly want to use.

We visited a couple of schools using different mobile device management systems to see them in action.  One system cost $30 per iPad to have managed, the other was free.  Ironically it was the free system, Meraki, that seemed to have more functionality.  I'll post about the process involved with moving to Meraki later.

I think you do lose the ease of teachers being able to explore and try new apps by going to specified apps and a centralised iPad management system.  However, here are the many benefits:

• Having one set of apps that all the teachers in each year level has means that teachers don't have to worry about which apps to select.
• Teachers can share ideas and support each other more easily.
• Professional development can focus on apps everyone has.  
• We can save money by using volume purchasing.
• If teachers change Year levels they can simply swap iPads rather than having to buy all new apps.
• The App Request Form allows apps to be assessed for educational suitability by senior management and checked to see if they duplicate an app we are already using.  
• If we do decide to add an app we can use Meraki to easily push it out to all the iPads that need it.
• We can deploy the more expensive apps needed by some students with special needs and then pull them back and push them to another iPad as they go through the school.
• Students will be able to learn how to use an app in one class and then they can carry that knowledge through in the following years as it will still be being used.

Finally, as we move to introducing BYOD next year it means we can use Meraki to easily (I hope!) push out our specified apps to students' devices.