Which App Should I Use?

[beasonfan]

I need some help from you iPad pros. i purchased my iPad in order to help me keep track of 150 students. I need to be able to have a variety of checklists, have on hand pdfs of medical forms, and so on. I have Bento, but it has been a little hard to work with and won't let me use simple checklists. On my Mac, Curio lets me do everything I want, but they have no iPad application.

What are you suggestions, my knowledgeable brethren and sistren?

Okay, so I made that word up.

 

[MattIM]

You may have to use a couple of apps for what you want to do. First, to keep track of 150 students, how about using Numbers? This is the iPad equivalent to a spread sheet. Are the 150 students in classes or categories? If so, you can use several spreadsheets per class.

Second, get GoodReader. This is a great app to manage pdf files.

Once you have created your spreadsheets you can also keep track of the spreadsheets in GoodReader.

My initial idea was to create specific contacts per student. But that would probably be too much, especially if these students fluctuate.

 

[twerppoet]

You can make checklists easily enough in Numbers, which you can also have and sync on your Mac with the OS X version. There's even a template for an attendance checklist all ready to go.

If you get a DropBox and DropDAV account it's real easy to move these files back and forth between your iPad and computer. Those are free accounts. I figure that last should be important for our often cash strapped educational heros.

For PDF's your choices are many.

iBooks does a fine job of reading PDF files.

GoodReader is as close to a file manager as the iPad has. It will read and annotate PDF's, and view/play many other file types. It also has far more options when it comes getting files on and off the iPad.

For the basic ability to fill out info and sign a PDF, SignMyPad is a good app.

I keep looking at PDF Expert, which is kind of a cross between GoodReader and SignMyPad, but haven't made up my mind whether to buy it yet.

There are many other options.

Also, I noticed that Bento just did an update. They'e added something called a simple list. It's kind of like a mini-spreadsheet that you can insert into records. Might make your current Bento solution work better.

I'll be upgrading, but not until I have an iPad 2 in my hot not-so-little hands. Until then must pinch pinch pinch the pennies.

 

[beasonfan]

Thanks For Your Advice

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestions. I have a Dropbox account, and I like it a lot, although it has seemed quite slow as of late. When I tried to star several of my PDFs already on Dropbox, which would allow me to view them on my iPad when not connected to the Internet, they took several minutes to download. So, I just synched my iPad and used that simple (but unnecessarily hard to find) file transfer application to put them on Goodreader.

I have a question, though: what is a WebDav account?

 

[beasonfan]

My initial idea was to create specific contacts per student. But that would probably be too much, especially if these students fluctuate.[/QUOTE]

What do you mean by "contact"? Is this something I would create in Goodreader?

 

[twerppoet]

WebDAV is a protocol/standard that allows you to download and upload files via the web in a manner very similar to accessing files on your computer. It's kind of a replacement for the older FTP services, but more web friendly. When you import and export a document in Pages, you've probably noticed that webDAV is one of the options.

Here is a better description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV

What DropDAV does is place a webDAV layer between you and DropBox, allowing you to use your DropBox account as if it had a webDAV server.

Btw, you can use the Connect to Servers function in GoodReader to connect to your DropBox account. Just choose Add. I believe it has a standard setup for DropBox, so all you have to do is enter your user name and password.

 

[beasonfan]

Okay, so how do I set up a DropDav thingy? Do I go to the Dropbox site?

Sorry to hammer you with questions!

 

[twerppoet]

Nope. Go to the dropdav.com site. You'll need your DropBox account info though. The page is kind of confusing, but if you look around it you'll see what you need soon enough.