Apple is working to fix another iOS 7 security-related bug. A number of schools across the US are experiencing issues with the latest OS upgrade, with some complaining that iOS 7 removes important supervision profiles that allow administrators to remote control iPads and restrict web access.

Apple dropping the ball on this one must have an impact on their push into the enterprise market. Many organisations supply company issued devices to staff with them controlled in a supervised mode. This kind of thing is unacceptable for them.

The other side of the coin however is some schools require students to supply their own device and they would not be happy if they are required to have supervision imposed while at home.

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Twenty-five Ramsey High School seniors have become a pilot group for testing how effective iPad devices can be in upper-level classrooms — an effort supporting the district’s goal to distribute the devices to the entire high school student body by September 2014.

It is good to see that this school district is rolling out their iPad program in phases, as well as evaluating the project along the way so that they can change course if they need to.

Also having a committee that visits trade shows to get ideas and make contacts is vital.

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A school division in Winnipeg is becoming one of the first in Canada to issue iPads to every junior high school student, with educators saying the tablets are a great tool to help stoke interest in learning. But not everyone likes the idea, and worry the technology could distract and turn off the student brain.

As more and more schools roll out technology for learning, they will find issues they need to solve, sometimes something they never even thought of in the planning process.

It seems one of the big ones is how to allow students to maximise the potential of the technology without impacting on their learning by being distracted in class.

Putting in very tight restrictions will have a negative effect on those students required to fund their own technology, as they will want full access to their device at least when they are off campus.

Lets see how this plays out.

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The city best known for its Wild West heritage is expanding the frontier again; this time for its broad deployment of iPad in its public schools. 

Teachers can plan curriculum for the upcoming six-week period using their iPad and then deliver student assessments online. While students take exams on an iPad or desktop computer, teachers track their accuracy in real-time on their iPads.

An example of a flexible integrated set of solutions combined to form a system that works for the school rather than the school trying to change to suit the system.

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Apple’s iPad is rapidly finding its way into education systems all over the world. Schools in countries as diverse as South Korea, the Netherlands, Thailand, the UK and the US are using the best-selling tablet to supplement, and in some cases even entirely replace, traditional teaching methods. In South Korea, printed textbooks are no longer used at all. In the Netherlands, a chain of private schools is soon to open that doesn’t have any traditional teaching methods at all: pupils will instead use iPads to learn at their own pace. iPads also have considerable advantages for developing countries: there is a large number of freely available apps for them, and the units are competitively priced and portable.

An interesting take on the iPad as a consumption only device. I do agree that the example sited in this article of a student needing to learn programming is not possible on an iPad. I would say a student still needs an iPad for all the learning material and as a second screen device for reference, or even as the device to test the program on.

Also the iPad can be used to do assessments and exams, stepping out of the consumption only roll.

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Two local elementary schools became the first to roll out tablet computers Tuesday in a $1-billion effort to put iPads in the hands of every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District (USA).

Interesting to note that about half of the costs for the iPad project goes to other costs associated with rolling out these devices, such as a robust WiFi network across each school campus.

In South Africa’s case these costs often force schools to abandon the project entirely. Unfortunately leaving them behind as far as embracing technology in education.

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