Personalized Learning

All elementary students in Arlington Public Schools are issued an APS-owned, APS-issued iPad device. Both in-person and virtually, these devices are not used every minute of the day and they are used to supplement teacher instruction and personalized learning. Additionally, by policy, the devices are NOT used during:

• Lunch, to encourage prosocial interaction
• Recess, to promote free physical play and student interaction
• Extended Day, to limit recreational “screen time,” unless specifically granted permission by the teacher and the family to use the device for an academic purpose in a supervised setting
• During school or teacher designated quiet time

These devices are learning tools to be used in the context of the APS Personalized Learning initiative. This is a county-level program not specific to Nottingham ES. The iPads issued are purchased, owned, managed, and maintained by the APS Department of Information Services.

The devices in the APS program are managed by a mobile device management system (MDM). The MDM controls the settings on each iPad, for each student. The MDM used in APS is called AirWatch. All device restrictions and settings are controlled centrally by the APS Department of Information Services. Neither individuals nor schools can modify these settings.

The Apple App Store is disabled, by policy, meaning your child cannot download and install apps normally. The only apps available on the device are those vetted, selected, approved, and deployed by APS. For county-provided apps, this vetting is done in conjunction with the APS Department of Information Services and the APS Department of Instruction. For school-provided apps, this vetting is done by the Instructional Technology Coordinator at each school. At Nottingham, the ITC is Mr. Crouse. This vetting includes examining apps for instructional soundness, student data privacy policy compliance, and at Nottingham, a zero-tolerance policy for marketing to children. These approved apps are delivered by the App Catalog, which is a part of the AirWatch MDM described above. These apps are either no cost or paid for by either APS or the school. There is no direct cost to families or students.

Apple Classroom is an iPad app for the teacher. It provides new ways to guide learning and control student iPad devices in the classroom. With Apple Classroom, the teacher can perform actions on each student’s iPad to guide their experience during class. For example, the teacher can help a student or an entire class open an app, view a teacher-pushed webpage, monitor student activity, remotely lock and mute student devices, share student screens and even project student work on other iPads or share it with the whole close through AirPlay and the many integrated Apple TVs at Nottingham. This new tool and electronic teacher interaction help students focus on exactly what we want them to learn.This software tool only works within the school and teachers can only control and monitor devices of students of which they have enrolled in their unique class. By design, there is no extended ability to monitor any device outside of our school through Apple Classroom.