Central issues for iPad restrictions in school

mlo
New Contributor II

The issue of iPad usage in schools focuses on restrictions to minimize distractions during lessons and breaks. Our school uses Jamf Teacher software but faces two main challenges:

  1. Restrictions During Breaks: Students use iPads during breaks, even though this is not allowed. Teachers often forget to activate the necessary restrictions, leading to distractions.

  2. Activation of Restrictions: There is a discussion about the idea of heavily restricting iPads from the start, allowing only the apps needed for lessons to be unlocked. Time profiles could help automatically activate restrictions at specific times.

One proposal is to use "iBeacon regions" to automatically lock the iPads when students enter or leave the school grounds. However, this requires students to consent to location services, complicating implementation.

The central challenge we currently face is that while the dynamic profiles that activate restrictions work well, the iPads become unusable outside the school premises. Solutions are being sought to ensure that devices can be used again outside of school while maintaining necessary restrictions on campus.

Additionally Students often bypass these restrictions by using their phones as hotspots, which is why there is also an aim to ensure automatic connection of iPads to the school Wi-Fi.

3 REPLIES 3

mlo
New Contributor II

WOW, this answer looks great and very informative

... at frist sight

 

If read thoroughly it heavily reminds me of answerd given by generative AI.
It gives advice without explaining anything.

In fact, it is pretty useless because it only rephrases anbs elaborates the question but does not provie an answer.

Lasse
Contributor II

I would look into:

  • Time activated/ time limited profiles to avoid having each teacher setting the same profile each day
  • Setting a time for the restrictions in Jamf Teacher to clear, ie at the end of school day
  • Restrict wifi settings modification, but this would not let them access home networks if they can take the devices home.

mlo
New Contributor II

It could be so simple like

if isAvailable(schoolWiFi):
   enforceConnection(schoolWiFi)
   denyConnection(allOtherWiFis)
   enforceWiFiOn()
   ### further restrictions here
else:
   deleteRestrictions(all)