iPads can email photos, PDF’s and a few other file types. This makes it possible to email items from student iPads to teacher email accounts. It is fairly straightforward to add a single email account to each student iPad. In fact, you probably already have an account that you used to register the iPads iTunes account. The problem is that every email will appear to have come from the same sender.

It’s possible to set up an iPad account so that each email will appear to have come from the device from which it was sent. In this blog, I’m going to explain how to adjust an iPad’s email settings to make that happen. I’ll also show you how to shut down the iPad’s inbox and finally how to monitor the emails that students send out. To make this work, I recommend choosing “other”. You’ll see later why this is important.

When adding a mail account, you’ll always be asked for both a name and a description. The description is just for you, so it doesn’t matter what you put on that line. The name is for whoever is going to be receiving an email from that account, though. So, on the first iPad, you would enter the name “iPad #1”, or “Washington High iPad #1”. The recipient of any email coming from that device will see that name in the from section of the email. This way, you can be sure of knowing the origin of anything sent out from one of the schools’ devices. You can rest assured that any prank email can easily be tracked down to the student who signed out the device using the date stamp and the name on the email.

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The next step is to make sure your students don’t get access to the iPad account’s inbox. When you first set up an email account on an iPad, the device is supposed to start showing you any emails you’ve received. Normally, that’s exactly what you want. In this case however, you want each iPad to send email but not recieve it. This is going to take two steps. First, delete the account password and enter in something random. This is going to prevent the iPad from receiving any emails from this account. Second, enter in the account username and password in the “Outgoing Mail Server” section. That will give the iPad the ability to send mail through the iPad email account.

The last step is going to allow you to monitor the emails that students send out. In the student iPad email settings, turn on “Always Bcc Myself”. This the only way you’ll be able to keep a record of which email was sent from which device. While you do have the sent folder in the email account you set up, that cannot tell you from which device it came. That bit of information is only going to be recorded if the student account receives a copy of the email. Be careful here. In many cases, you’ll have a email account quota. If you have hundreds of students emailing from these devices, you’ll reach that quota pretty quickly. It would be wise to get an account with a substantial quota limit like Gmail.

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That’s it. You should now have a set of devices that can send out pictures, PDF’s and other items while still being relatively secure.

Take note...

Tablets are taking the academic world by storm. They're light, compact and extremely multifunctional. They also do things differently than a laptop. One of the really interesting areas tablets are being used is as a notebook.

There are dozens of note-taking apps out there, each with it's particular pluses and minuses. I'm just going to touch on a few that I find particularly interesting.

1) PDF editors- iAnnotate PDF, PDF Notes, PDFpen, PDF Expert

These are apps which allow you to take notes on what you read. My professors would always tell me that in order to learn from a textbook, you really have to interact with it by underlining and writing in the margins. That's exactly what these apps allow you to do. By providing digital highlighters, pens and sticky notes, textbooks can be marked up in endless ways. Latter, the annotations can just as easily be erased.

2) Typing, sharing notes- Google docs, Microsoft Office Live, Evernote, Notability

These are all great options for typing and saving notes in class. The first three are actually just designed to save and share text. Notability really stands out though. At ten bucks, it gives you a lot more functionality like syncing your notes to audio recordings. This can be a lifesaver if you’re are in a fast-paced lecture. It also lets you draw in your notes- another great feature.

3) Document scanners- Camscanner, Photo to PDF, DocScanner

Having the ability to turn a picture into a PDF can come in quite handy. On the fly, you can turn any document into a PDF which you can then mark up or email to someone. Keep in mind that these would be best used in a pinch. Scanners and copy machines like Riso do a much better job of scanning your important papers.  

Like so much of what we've seen so far, tablets are providing students with options they've never had before. These are just a few of the ways tablets can (but just as often do not) outshine laptops. Please let me know if I've missed something important here. I'd love to get your feedback.