30 iPad Cart & Email...What to do?

Anyone who has experience using iPads in a shared environment (traveling iPad Carts for example) in the classroom will quickly realize that  the iPad was never meant to be shared amongst end users, it is absolutely a device designed for individual use.  The primary premise for this argument is that email is the primary method by which content is exported and shared from the iPad.  How can this situation be resolved in the classroom?  I don't know if this is the best solution, but I have decided to create one gmail account that will be installed on every iPad in the cart.  I settled on this solution for a two main reasons:

• Installing email on 30 iPads is tedious.  I was only able to keep my sanity by quickly memorizing the username and password for the single email account and the entire process didn't take all that long.
• With only one email account, I am able to login from my MacBook to periodically check the email account.

The iPad cart is about to be rolled out for use throughout the entire school, and it will become critical for the teachers and students to know that the email account associated with the iPad is to be used only for the purposes of exporting content from the iPad.  I am hopeful that this setup will not cause any sort of problem, but it may happen...

Apple recently released the Apple Configurator that will apparently be a great help in managing shared iPads in a cart environment.  I have yet to get my hands on the Configurator, but will hopefully update the blog soon with my experiences managing with this new resource.

For additional resources on getting started with iPads in your classroom, check out:

• EdTechTeacher's iPad As...page
• History 2.0 Classroom: iPad Cart & App Selection