Organizing your Shared Classroom iPads
Organizing shared technology doesn't have to be a nightmare!
I will be the first to admit that trying to keep iPads organized when they're shared among students (in my case 300+ students) can be a serious challenge! To make things more difficult, a large group of these students are very young with limited reading abilities. Apple has made this easier with shared accounts for iPads, but in my school, that's not yet a possibility.
Yowza....Now there's a challenge. The solution? Color/number coding!
How it works:
Create a system of either color or number organization for your room. It could be as simple as assigning a color to each table/group of desks, or even just making a list of student names with numbers next to them.
Using the templates below, create iPad wallpaper that includes your name, the grade you teach, the color, and the iPad numbers. This will make it easy for students to find the iPad that they're assigned to work on. There is one file for classrooms with 6 shared iPads, and one file for classrooms with 10 shared iPads, but both are editable if you have a different number of iPads!
Be sure to change the names of your iPads as well (if your district allows it---see the video below to learn how). This will make using AirDrop much easier as you will be able to specifically target the iPad you want to send it to. Simply ask a student which iPad they're on and you're ready to send! We do this by naming the iPad with the teacher's last name, the color, and the number.
Label classroom mailboxes and use binder clips to help keep charging cords organized (have you seen this hack yet? Clip a binder clip to the edge of your mailboxes and fish the cord through the binder clip so the cords don't get tangled or lost!). Students will know just where to go each time they need to grab their iPad, and they'll be responsible for plugging it in each time they finish using it.
There you have it. Download the editable Keynotes with directions as to how to easily create your custom wallpapers and change them on your iPads. Check out the video below as well!
