iPad device management: charging multiple devices

This is the first instalment of my device management themed posts (I am building myself up to discussing Apple Configurator)


I am currently using seven of my iPad teaching set, so charging devices between use should not be a big deal! Right? Erm... This is just the kind of thing that can turn your office into a health and safety nightmare that resembles Cable Junction in Jaws 2. Since my uninterupted power supply base unit is on the floor by the side of my computer desk this meant all the iPads were jumbled all over the floor. They were blocking access to my filing cabinet, I was in danger of running the wheels of my chair over the delicate white cables and as there were only three spare plug slots I could only charge a few iPads at a time. Each device requires 2-3 hours of charging time depending on how much the students used the in-built camera in the field. This meant I needed a full day of jostling devices between the available outlets to get them all ready for use again. This is not a particular issue if you are in your office all the time, but if you are out teaching for extended periods, running back to your office to switch over a charge lead can be a real pain. To try and keep track of this process, I drew up a table on my office white board and had a simple tick system (see image below). What a fath! 

Documenting the iPad device charge rota!

SURELY THERE IS A BETTER WAY THAN THIS...?

The XtremeMac InCharge x5 Charge Station is currently retailed at £129.99. This ingenious device has five docking stations, enabling you to simultaneously charge five iPads from a single power supply. Wow - what a great solution to the socket outlet issue I am having. The lovely screen shot of this unit shows the iPads all neatly lined up, making it space saving as well. However, the iPads are shown without cases, and from what I can tell the only way they will dock is for me to remove my heavy duty cases. Now I will have a post dedicated to the cases soon, but for sake of brevity and in respect for my finger nails, I am not removing the Griffin cases every time I need to recharge my units.

Since the Griffin cases are what is causing me the trouble, perhaps Griffin will have a solution? Yes they do!!! The Griffin PowerDock5 Charging Station, with a retail price of £79.99, so is cheaper too. The unit has five USB conection points that you use to link your iPad via its USB cable and five physical spaces for you to hold your iPads in. So thankfully, you do not have to remove the device from its case. In a review by the Huffington Post on 28 Oct 2013 they note the cables can get tangled, and question whether its "worth paying for something that isn't technically that much more useful than a normal plug extender".

This got me thinking in Blue Peter fashion. All I really need is a physical divider to hold my iPads and a surge protected power bar to connect the iPads to via their USB charger (in this case four devices running off a single plug socket). And so I introduce you my low tech and very inexpensive multi-charger unit (see image below). Its a paper tidy holder. The iPads are placed vertically into it, with two iPads fitting in each slot and connects to an extension power bar that was going spare in the tech office. The USB cables sit behind the desk tidy so do not get all tangled. AND (the best bit), I have a simple system of charging the iPad on the lefthandside of each slot first and then switching to the iPad to the right afterwards. GENIUS. I have to admit that when I started working with iPads I did not realise how important this kind of stuff can be.

Innovative solution: paper holder used as iPad holding station

Bringing it all together...

Just finished the wrap-up tutorial for LSC-30043 Conservation Biology, which provides the students with a forum to discuss any issues pertaining to the individual field tutorials and the associated in-course assessment. This was a really useful session for MYSELF and the students. I handed out my post-activity teaching evalution questionnaire for the students to complete. As I suspected the students had not remembered their unique alphanumeric ID to track the pre- and post-activity responses. I was really touched that the students (a) completed the forms despite it being an optional activity and (b) took the time to seek out their pre-activity forms so they could add the unique ID. I am going to hold fire looking at the responses until after I have marked the reports. These anomously "tracked" questionnaires are one of the datasets for my Action Research project.

From the verbal dialogue and questions raised during this session it became evident that the students were a bit troubled by the target notes aspect of the report. There are five field sessions, each of which examined ten targets, plus we covered one in the initial briefing session to get students switched on to what they needed to look for. This yields a total of 55 target notes, which should be placed in the appendix of the report (and therefore does not contribute to the word count) and act as "raw data" for the report. This should not be an onerous task as each student should have produced an individual written account of the target as part of the weekly tutorials. The students are struggling with two concepts here: INDIVIDUALITY when the targets were produced as a group activity and the concept of the target notes forming RAW DATA.

Why individuality?

The students worked in groups of 4-5 individuals and were required to discuss the nature of each target as a group, but write up their accounts individually. This collaborative approach is something that occurs within ecological consultancies, and therefore emulates the working environment, and is standard practice for students engaged on field-oriented courses such as geology and environmental science. A verbal dialogue is a great way of problem-solving tasks that may seem a bit overwhelming if faced alone and enables students within the group to benefit from the unique perspectives and skill sets of the different individuals. The problem is that despite repeatedly telling the students (printed in the handbook and verbally in the tutorial briefing sessions) that each individual in the group must produce their OWN set of notes, several of the groups elected to produce a single collated notes. While on one side, this is really great as it shows the degree to which the students have collaborated on the task, but if they all put in the same set of notes it will get flagged up as "plagiarism" by Turnitin.

The reason we want an individual approach is that (a) individuals may have different views on what the habitat is and they need to be able to justify this in the report, and (b) we want to assess student understanding of the process, which can only be gauged if its in their own words. Otherwise the group notes could be the product of one particularly switched on student. Unfortunately, the knock-on effect of this is that for these affected groups, the task of putting the 55 target notes into the report appendix becomes a much larger job as they need to rewrite the notes into their own words. We had an informal discussion about how students could be encouraged to do the task individually. The general consensus seemed to be that students are required to hand in their map and associated target notes for formative feedback early in the field tutorials, and this is something I plan to build into next years module.

So what is raw data?

I don't think the students quite got the "data" angle of the target notes until today. In science, "data" is viewed as quantitative numerial measurements of a particular feature. So the science students were comfortable with measurements, such as the width of the lake, the slope of the bankside, the distance of a tree to the path, etc, being data. But, did not view a textual account of the educational value of a rhododendron bush or a photograph of a tree tag that has been nibbled by a squirrel as datal! Yet all of these observations, which can be subjective and are often framed in the outlook of the observer, constitute data. I can understand why the students are struggling here, as I have been debating the very same issues for my Action Research project and it has opened up whole new world of possibilities to me and I hope the students feel the same.

Types of data - this photo of a partially intact arboretum tree label could be evidence of squirrel damage or anti-social behaviour by visitors?

Types of data - this photo of ducklings with female mallard is proof that breeding has been successful.

Types of data - the measurement tool in MAGIC was used to gauge the maximum width of the Keele Lake in meters.