Have you heard yourself call out, "Who is Top-6?" In a busy classroom, it can be tough to keep track of student ipads, and challenging to continually identify them with the district's number on the device or the location of its shelf in the charging cart. Stickers fall off and marked numbers wear away. Students forget to put their device away in the correct spot. It would be much easier if the teacher could click the Home button, glance at the lock screen and instantly identify the student-owner of the ipad.
Some creative teachers are now setting the ipad's wallpaper to reflect the student-owner of the device. In a 1:1 classroom it might have only 1 user. In classrooms with only a few ipads, the teacher may want to assign an ipad to a certain group of students.
The secret is remembering that anything saved to the camera roll can become the wallpaper. Many apps include the option of saving a project to the camera roll, but taking a screen shot of the creation will also save an image to the camera roll. (Hold down the lock button and home button at the same time until you hear the click. ) Then go to the photos app, choose something in the camera roll, click the share icon, select Set Wallpaper, and then select Lock Screen. The photo then becomes the first thing you see when you click the Home button to wake up the ipad.
Here are some ideas for personalized lock screen wallpapers:
You can download numbered wallpaper backgrounds for a uniform look.
Students could take a selfie and make that their wallpaper. If you use Skitch or Seesaw, have students annotate and write their name with the photo. Another idea is to have students write words around their photo that describe them.
Use each student's ipad to take a photo of them with their name tag.
Have students take a photo of their name written on paper with their best handwriting, or use a whiteboard app to have them write and display their name.
Use a photo of a favorite project or class activity. One clever teacher I know decided to use the photos taken of her students on the 100th Day of school with the Aging Booth app.
Have student spell their name with letter manipulatives and take a photo.
Let the student owner of the device creatively design something that identifies them. Using a whiteboard app or any app with art tools like Doodle Buddy or Drawing Desk, the student could write their name and design a customized screen for their ipad.
With a little imaginative brainstorming, identifying student iPads can go from problem to creative class project, which can lead to improved student responsibility for their devices.
