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The Apple TVs should never be allow with the default settings in a classroom environment. Best practice is to tweak the settings to make Apple TV more classroom friendly.

What’s an Apple TV? What is AirPlay?

Apple TV isn’t actually a television. It’s a small black box with HDMI output.  Its output might go to a television, or it can be connected to a projector (like the ones that display onto a SMART Board). If your projector doesn’t have an HDMI input, you can use an HDMI to VGA adapter.

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A typical use of an Apple TV in the classroom, is to mirror the teacher and student iPads or MacBooks. There are plenty of other ways to display an iPad on a large screen, and Apple TV is one of the most popular because it has AirPlay. AirPlay is Apple’s technology that will stream a live view of whatever is on an iOS device's screen. This is why Apple TV is so popular. This mirroring ability through AirPlay is built into all iPads (except the first generation iPad) and all newer iPhones and iPod touches.

With iPad mirrored onto a large screen, teachers can demo how to use an app, zoom into maps, show what’s under iPad’s camera etc. Students can show off their latest creations, draw their solution to a problem, display their writing, etc. 

The recommended best practice for Apple TVs in a classroom environment is to hide Movie Previews

The fact that the Apple TV often shows movie posters, artworks when nothing is being played or mirrored, causes a lot of classroom distraction. Sometimes this artworks has images you’d

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rather not display in a school. Even if all the images are tame, showing movie posters distracts students. Studies have proven that lessons get derailed simply because students got excited and started discussing the movie titles they saw appear on the screen.

In order to get rid Apple TV’s home screen of those movie posters etc. you’ll need to enable Restrictions. To do this go to the Settings menu, select General, and choose Restrictions.

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You’ll be prompted to enable Restrictions with a passcode. After you’ve done that, change Purchase & Rental to Hide.

Hide All Those Channels

While you cannot hide all of the channels you see on Apple TV’s home screen, you can hide most of them. We may have no need for The Tennis Channel, CNN, and ABC Family channels etc. You might not even need the YouTube channel because you can AirPlay that content from an iPad instead.

To hide channels, go to Apple TV’s Settings app. Choose Main Menu. Change each channel from Show to Hide.

Alternatively, you can hide an icon by using Apple TV’s remote to select an icon. Holding down the remote’s center button will cause the icon to jiggle. Press the Play/Pause button to bring up a menu where you can choose to hide that item.

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The home screen should look like the above with all MAIN MENU, PURCHASE and RENETAL ITEMS HIDDEN

Rearrange Icons

You cannot rearrange the top row of icons. If you hid all of the channels you are able to hide, you won’t be left with any icons which can rearrange. But if you didn’t hide all of the extra channels, you can rearrange them. 

Rearrange the icons by highlighting one that you want to move. Next, press and hold the remote’s center button until the icon shakes. Use the arrow buttons to move the icon. Press the center button again to make that icon stop shaking and stay in place.

How to use Apple Remote to control Apple TV settings and navigate your content.

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 Basic remote functions

Use the Screen Saver as a Bulletin Board

While Apple TV’s default screen saver photographs are beautiful, you can use your own images for the screen saver. It’s like using the display connected to your Apple TV as a digital bulletin board!

For the classroom environment recommended adding an iCloud Photos album on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad titled Apple TV. After adding images to this album, go into Apple TV’s Settings app and choose Screen Saver. Choose iCloud Photos and your album that you titled Apple

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TV. Note that the option to use iCloud Photos as the screen saver is not displayed if you have hidden iCloud Photos from the main menu.

It might be tricky using iCloud Photos if your iCloud account is different from the one used for the Apple TV. If this is the case, create a Flickr account and make an album for Apple TV. Select your Flickr account in Apple TV’s Screen Saver settings. Note that the option to use Flickr as the screen saver is not displayed if you have hidden Flickr from the main menu.

After you have that iCloud Photos or Flickr account all set up in as the screen saver, you don’t have to do anything on Apple TV when you want to make changes. Simply add to or remove images from your iCloud Photos or Flickr album and those changes will be automatically made to Apple TV’s screen saver. 

Also in the Screen Saver settings: you can set how long each image is displayed and how long it takes before the screen saver activates. I suggest you use the Classic style of screen saver. Classic displays each photo full screen. It’s best to keep things simple with a dissolve transition.

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What images might you want to display? It is not advisable to put photos of students as the screen saver. It’s not advisable to put pictures of kids as: they freak out when they see photos of themselves or their friends. Thus teachers shouldn’t make their screen saver to be distracting. So instead, it is best practice to post educational content, which might include:

images of anchor charts educational posters vocabulary words with definitions digitized student work artwork important reminders due dates inspirational quotes writing prompts (John Spencer has some super Photo Prompts) any information you put on a PowerPoint/Keynote/Google Slide saved as an image

Rename the Apple TV

If there’s more than one Apple TV in your school, you’ll want to name the Apple TV so that it’s clear which room the Apple TV is in. To name an Apple TV, open Settings and choose AirPlay. Select Apple TV Name and choose Custom. Enter a new name. Because Apple TVs are listed in alphabetical order under an iPad’s or Mac’s AirPlay menu, I've known some teachers to begin their Apple TV's name with a symbol so theirs appears first.

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Display AirPlay Instructions

Apple TV has an option to turn on what’s called Conference Room Display. When not mirroring or playing content, Apple TV will show onscreen instructions for using AirPlay, including the Apple TV’s name. You have the option to display those instructions on top of your screen saver or alongside a photo of your choice.

If you’re using the screen saver as a bulletin board, you might not want to turn on Conference Room Display. The onscreen instructions will mostly likely obstruct the informational image it’s positioned on top of .Conference Room display takes up about a third of the screen. If you’re pairing it with a background photo, design your image accordingly. 

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But, if you’re not using the screen saver, Conference Room Display is useful for letting others know the name of that specific Apple TV on your network. And if you have multiple Wi-Fi networks, Conference Room Display can indicate which hotspot the Apple TV is associated with. Note that if the Apple TV is using a wired network connection, Conference Room Display will not show Wi-Fi information.

You can set a Custom Message in the Conference Room Display settings. The message is kind of small, but it might be a great place to indicate any passwords or hints for connecting to Wi-Fi.

Use a Keyboard with Apple TV

Entering letters and numbers using Apple TV’s remote arrows is not fun. I suggest getting the free Remote app so you don’t have to arrow from character to character. The Remote app for iOS will display a keyboard on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch you can type on. It’s worth the time it takes to download the app and pair with your Apple TV for when you need to enter a passcode, account information, or custom messages.

The Remote app uses Home Sharing, which needs to be set up on the Apple TV and on the device on which you will use the Remote app. On Apple TV this involves going to Settings →General → Remotes → Remote App.

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How to avoid your class from been hijacked

By default, anyone on the same network can AirPlay to Apple TV. That’s fine in someone’s living room, but in a school, that means that others can send anything to the classroom’s screen, even people not in the same room. If unwanted images, audio, or video ever appear on your Apple TV, you can press the Menu button on its remote to stop AirPlay and return to Apple TV’s menu.

You have several options to protect your Apple TV from possible screen hijackers. These options are found by choosing AirPlay → Security in Apple TV’s Settings.

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You can choose to set an AirPlay password. This password doesn’t have to be a strong one. In fact, make this password something really simple to enter. You can choose to share this password with your students, or, if you want them to AirPlay from their devices, you can enter it for them. Devices remember the password, so you can change the password periodically if necessary.

If the teacher is the only one using AirPlay, He or she can make the password a little more secure because it won’t be typed very often. Or, the teacher could turn on Require Device Verification. With Device Verification turned on, Apple TV requires a device to be verified with a one-time onscreen code before it can use AirPlay.

If you just want to be sure that only devices in the same room as the Apple TV can AirPlay, consider turning on Onscreen Code. Each time someone choose to connect to Apple TV, a four digit code is displays onscreen and must be entered on the device before AirPlay begins.

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Take Up Your Whole Screen

If Apple TV is not taking up your entire screen or appears smooshed, try changing the TV Resolution settings. You can find these in Settings under Audio and Video. If you’re using a projector that is not widescreen, try changing the TV Resolution to 1024x768. This resolution might help make a mirrored iPad’s display appear larger. If your display doesn’t look right, try enabling Adjust for AirPlay Overscan.

If a mirrored iPad display does not fill your entire projector screen, try fiddling with the Aspect options on your projector. You might be able to stretch or zoom the screen to make the iPad’s screen larger.

If   AirPlay Stops Being Nice...

AirPlay can be flakey. When you mirror an iPad to an Apple TV, sometimes the connection stops without any warning. This might be because of network issues, but I’ve had this happen on really good Wi-Fi networks. It can usually get the connection back quickly. Sometimes you might have to turn off my iPad’s Wi-Fi and turn it back on, or you might have to power down my iPad and power it back up. Or, you might have to restart the Apple TV by going

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to Settings → General → Restart. There will even be situations where you just cannot get AirPlay to resume.

It’s nice to have a backup for when you are having troubles mirroring to Apple TV. The best backup plan is to connect the projector or television directly to your iPad using a VGA or HDMI cable and an adapter. Apple makes four different kinds of adapters you can use.

See Pictures below:

Some Apple TV tips and tricks...

To get back to Apple TV’s Home screen easily, hold down the remote’s Menu button. This is much faster than backing out of layers and layers of menus.

In order to AirPlay from a device, the Apple TV and the device must be on the same network. The exception is Peer-to-Peer AirPlay, but that’s only available to very new Apple TVs and very new devices.

AirPlay doesn’t work on all Wi-Fi networks because it requires certain ports to be open. See Appendix 1.1 below.

If some of the options are not available for your Apple TV, a software update might need. Go to Settings →General → Software Updates to get the latest update.

Wire your Apple TV to Ethernet if you have that option. It will put less strain on your Wi-Fi and you should get better mirroring results.

You can lock Apple TV setting with a passcode you set in General → Restrictions. Any changes will require the passcode.

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Apple TV only has an HDMI connection out. If you want to use Apple TV with a projector that doesn’t have HDMI, then get an HDMI to VGA adapter.

If you have a large number of Apple TVs to set up, consider using Configurator. It runs on a Mac and allows for network and other settings to be pushed out to Apple TVs and other iOS devices.

You can mirror a Chromebook to an Apple TV using the AirParrot Chrome extension. You can mirror a PC to an Apple TV using AirParrot.

I’m still on the lookout for a convenient way to mirror Android to Apple TV. If you have an Apple TV and an iPad, you’ve got to try playing Sketch Party TV with your class.

It’s a Pictionary-style drawing and guessing game. The app keeps score and tells you whose turn it is to draw. While it is advertised as a party game, teachers can input vocabulary words and play as a really fun way for the class to review.

What firewall ports need to be open to use AirPlay?

The firewall on your computer or router may prevent your AirPlay from functioning correctly. Below is a link to a list of ports that are used by AirPlay, please ensure all of the below ports are open to allow Airplay to function correctly -

 

 

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