Earning your diploma in Apple management: Part 3

Part 3: Maximize learning time with Apple's Classroom app

Over the years, Apple has proven its commitment to education by unveiling classroom-altering features like the iPad, iTunes U and a wealth of education-specific apps. With that said, what has Apple been up to lately to help IT maximize learning time for the students and teachers they support?

In our blog series, we’ll examine what Apple is currently offering to help schools get more out of their education technology and explain the role of mobile device management (MDM) in streamlining the entire process.

Before we dive into the Apple Classroom app, just a few housekeeping items. If you're new to our five-part series, be sure to read the first installment on Apple School Manager and second on different technology deployment models. In the third piece, I’ll examine what’s possible with Apple’s Classroom app and explain how you can empower your teachers to maximize classroom time through a simple and intuitive tool.

Apple Classroom app: What’s in it for teachers?
As the classroom continues to transform and a greater emphasis is placed on implementing and utilizing technology within the classroom, educators need a classroom device management (CDM) tool that can help them get the most out of their growing number of devices. And this need is not lost on Apple. That’s why they created the Classroom app. Classroom allows teachers to:

• Facilitate the flow of activities during class time
• Foster collaborative groups
• Create dynamic communications
• Facilitate student-centered learning

Apple Classroom app: What role does IT and MDM play?
Depending on your Apple and MDM implementation, you can leverage Classroom in three different ways with three different sets of capabilities — with each additional layer providing more support for teachers and students.

1. Classroom with no MDM
One of the main features of Classroom 2.0 is that supervision or MDM is not required for use. This creates an opportunity for schools planning a small-scale iPad deployment or considering a pilot program to benefit from Apple technology. This model provides a limited feature set, but does allow for manually creating unmanaged classes and launching apps, websites or books on student devices.

2. Classroom with MDM and Education Support
When pairing Classroom with MDM — plus turning on Education Support within your MDM to generate Education Profiles for all your classroom devices — you’ll be able to create managed classes and automate class generation. To make it even easier for students to leverage their technology, you can upload each student’s photo to your server. This allows them to simply tap on their photo and login when they are ready to begin learning on their iPad.

3. Classroom with MDM and Apple School Manager
To get the most out of the Classroom app, it’s recommend to leverage it with the education-exclusive Apple School Manager. See part one of this series for more information. This allows you to not only create managed classes and automate class generation, but also integrate with your Student Information System (SIS), allow teachers to reset managed Apple ID passwords if a student forgets their login information and utilize Shared iPad to empower students with a personalized learning experience on a shared device.