It’s really easy to get caught up in the excitement of purchasing your first set of iPod Touches and forget about some of the necessary hardware that might be necessary to get your program up and running. This was an area that we had to learn as we went along. With that in mind, there are at least three things that you should definitely consider having as a part of your iPod program.

The cart.

Almost regardless of the amount of units you plan on deploying, you are going to want to ensure you have a way to mass sync the devices. Syncing those guys would be an incredibly daunting task without some sort of hardware to connect them all at once. Heck, it’s a daunting task sometimes even with a cart. The cart we went with was is the Bretford PowerSync Cart. http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/TL357LL/B

You’re looking at about a $2200 pricetag, but considering it’s ability to charge 40 and sync 20, it will more than likely be worth it. A caveat… The specs recommend a macbook running at least OS X 10.4.10. We went ahead with the purchase with a PC and have run into a few problems. It works, but it’s a struggle. For example, the PC (running on about 4gig of ram and a relatively fast processor) bogs down at the site of 20 iPod Touches being plugged in at the same time. After a few trials, I was able to do it by plugging them into the cart one at a time and then syncing. It’s not ideal, but it will get you through if you absolutely don’t have a mac.

The cart features some storage in the bottom and two heavy locks for security.

Mics.

The current iPods model when we purchased were the third generation, and to get the most for our buck we purchased the 8 gigabyte versions. Something that should be noted is that these do NOT come with the earbuds with mics(apparently large sizes do). So if you’re purchasing some 8g iPods be sure to leave some cash for the mics. We were lucky to find some on monoprice.com for around $4 each. No telling how long the deal will last, or how much you’ll end up paying elsewhere. It was a deal for us, so we took it. http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10823&cs_id=1082303&p_id=5873&seq=1&format=2 Of course you don’t need these, but the voice recorder will mock you. Not to mention that there are a couple of good voice apps that we’ll be talking about later.

Chargers

No AC adapters came with our iPods. You get the usb cord, generic earbuds, and an odd piece of plastic. SO if you have students that lack a computer at home, be sure and purchase a few of these. They’re $30 through Apple. No telling whether a third party adapter will have compatibility issues, but if we find one that works well we’ll feature it.

Cases.

The backs of these do scratch up a bit, and you’ll probably want some extra protection for your investment. We’re having our students purchase these if they want them.

Bate Middle School iPod Touch Project 2010