What Apps - Part One

I've now begun my third year using an iPad at work. I have over 100 apps in my iTunes account and most of them aren't even synched to my iPad. If I ignore apps that are for kids or purely for entertainment value I still have over 70 apps of which I regularly use very few.

So what are the apps that you would find on my ipad? A good place to start would be with the dock, as that is where I keep the apps I use the most. The apps there are Calendar [apple], Settings [apple] Chrome [google] Gmail [google] and Flipboard [flipboard].

OK, I'm going to try again. Hopefully I will keep the blog a bit more up to date this academic year!

During the summer I had several developments of significance. The first is that I have just completed the transition to all Apple computing products. As I write (on a new iMac) my windows PC is having the hard drive scrubbed and it will be recycled for a postgrad student. The second is that we are buying another 20 or so iPads to add to the ones I already have. This will primarily (but not exclusively) be used in the dissection room. I am presently finalizing the apps we will load on these and thinking through how best we might use them in a meaningful and engaging way.

I am dreading the management issues. Because Apple has chosen not to operate a volume licensing programme in Ireland, I can't use Apple Configurator so each iPad will have to be manually managed. If anyone out there knows of a better way than individual device management please let me know.

The case for a case

As you might expect when it is intended to use iPads in an environment such as a dissection room, protecting them becomes a particular issue. Anticipating the worst we went ahead and purchased GumDrop cases. These are robust three-part cases. One part covers the back of the iPad, the second part, a translucent screen cover, snaps on top of the first, and the third part is a thick rubber bumper that surrounds the back and sides of the case. First the good - the cases are robust and work really well. The bumper is easy to grip even with slippery latex gloves, and the case gives excellent protection against casual drops and bumps. Now the bad - ugly, ugly, ugly. You no longer look like you are using a slick, well-designed modern tablet. Secondly, the fit between the back of the case and the screen protector is so good that opening the case can be difficult and might cost you a fingernail! And finally, (and the deal breaker for me) was the length of time it took to wash the cases and dry them, and especially to dry the screen protector so that it didn't have annoying streaks all over it.
We switched to a low-tech but effective method which I had been using with my own iPad. When the iPads are removed from their storage case, the students wrap the iPad they are using in good quality clingfilm/plastic wrap (we use stuff from Western Plastics). When done, the clingfilm is just discarded. Every couple of days (or as needed) the iPads are wiped with some alcohol free cleansing wipes. So far this has worked well for us and we haven't had any drops or damaging accidents. We also require students bringing their own tablets into the lab to use this method.
The quality of the film/wrap IS important, and the bargain stuff doesn't really work. The film/wrap must have an excellent degree of 'clingability' and 'stretch' (I bet there are official measurements for these parameters!) so that one or at most two layers can be tightly wound onto the iPad. We have found that cheap film doesn't cling and so just slides off.
Of course we wouldn't recommend this method for all uses/circumstances but it fits our needs perfectly for now. At some point in the near future we will buy and test the newly released Seal Shields iPad2 cases. Apparently these are so slim so as to be almost invisible and allow complete immersion of the iPad in water, as well as being impregnated with an anti-bacterial coating. If they work as advertised these could gain wide acceptance is some clinical settings where sterile practice is paramount (actually sterile practice should be paramount in ALL clinical settings when you think of it!), as well as in settings such as ours where there is a need to protect the devices from chemical splashes and spills etc.

OK, now it really is time to start updating regularly. The iPad trial is underway. We have four academic staff members and two students involved as principals in the trial. Two of the staff members and one of the students did not own an ipad at the trial commencement and were given an iPad in order to participate. We will be hearing from them shortly in regard to their initial experiences and impressions of the iPad2.

We have 12 iPads for student use during the trial. Between 8 and 12 of these are available to use in a structured way during lab sessions, tutorials, clinical skills sessions and lectures. Individual staff members have their own projects to evaluate whether the iPad is a useful and constructive tool, but in all cases we are looking at whether a set of medical school owned (as opposed to invidually owned) iPads are a useful tools and a worthwhile investment. We will report on each of these projects and the apps they use on an individual basis as the trial proceeds.

I am administering the trial and responsible for the initial setup of all the equipment, and working out the details of syncing, provisioning and the other logistical elements in running the trial. The iPad(2)s were purchased prior to the release of iOS 5.0 so we had to buy hardware to enable simultaneous syncing and charging. I have yet to get the syncing to work! So I have been manually syncing each of the 12 as needed.

Early student response and feedback from using the iPads in the dissection room has been good, but as yet it is too early to tell if this is a response to the novelty value or the educational value. A quick check on each of the iPads after their use shows that every app on the device had been started, even though only a couple were relevant to the work at hand. Whether this represented simple curiosity or whether it reflects the iPads being used as a distraction when students should be dissecting or working with specimens remains to be seen. More anon.