If your school requires an iPad, there’ll be no excuse for your kids to not have their class work thanks to an app or two from Apple.
With so much being handled in the digital environment, it’s no surprise to see schools fully embracing computers and tablets. Times have changed since the computer was something for home and not school, and when you typically had one per room, or just the computer lab filled with them to work.
These days, kids bring their own to the school, instead of just the notepad, pencils, and books like we used to, you know, back in the day.
What device that is depends on the school, with laptops used in many, and tablets like the iPad used at others. In schools where the iPad is the device of choice, classes may end up seeing a few changes where the teacher ends up with a little more control to hand out activities for students to do, and to track how students are going with their school work.
It’s a series of changes coming to Apple’s Classroom app, which is now in version 2.0. Overseas, it’s called “Schoolroom”, but here in Australia (and in New Zealand), Classroom is an app Apple hopes teachers will like, able to track a variety of metrics for students using the Classwork app, which is where school work happens for the student: the Classroom app is for teachers, while Classwork is for students and teachers alike.
They’re apps made for on campus learning, and give teachers the ability to see what the kids are doing when they enter specific rooms, as well as being able to assign courses using an iPad.
That may well be something parents are already familiar with if they have kids with an iPad in school, but can be handy of those same kids tell you there’s no homework for them to do, because Classwork might just be able to let you log in on the iPad and find out for yourself.
This month, updates to Classroom include the ability to have the app automatically sync with a teacher’s school Apple ID, which means the classes and workload are already there the moment they sign in. Simply load up the app, and you’ll be able to confirm if they do indeed have nothing to do.
It’ll work whether they’re using an iPad Mini, iPad 10.2, iPad Pro, or even something a little bit older, too, provided its operating system has been updated recently. These join a few features Apple launched earlier in the year, such as the ability to share an iCloud folder from teachers with the class, allowing them to see documents and notes, among other things, while Apple’s productivity suite for Pages (documents), Number (spreadsheets), and Keynote (presentations) supports collaboration across devices.
As to whether a school your kids go to is using this, you’ll know likely based on the school’s device requirements: if they use a computer — Windows or Mac — checking their school work might be as simple as getting them to show you the work they’re doing, but if it’s an iPad that they rely on, that Classwork app is likely where you’ll be looking, and where their teachers are checking, too.
