Managing your iPads with Apple Configurator

For the past year and a half I have been using Apple configurator to manage our district's iPads.

Its far from a perfect product but does help teachers and admins manage lots of iPads (we have nearly a thousand of them)

Configurator lets us

• Download an app to many iPads at the same time
• Put links to web sites on the iPad desktop (these are called webclips)
• Set policies for the iPads (these are called profiles)
• Do not allow students to buy or download apps
• Automatically connect to your schools wireless network (without having to enter password into each one)

The Confgurator is free but does require an Apple computer capable of running the latest versions of the OS (Lion, 10.7 is the minimum) If you need it, the upgrade costs $19.95

Unfortunately, you do need to have all the iPads connected to the mothership via USB cables. Many Schools use a dedicated iPad cart for this. If you want to do it cheaply you can buy a big USB hub for about $60.

Here are youtube Links

http://Shorter You tube Configurator Video

Long You tube Configurator video from Penn State