Can Android be cloned for classroom tablets

[thollis]

I am researching Android tablets for use in my classroom. Is there a way to clone one tablet (mine, for instance) so that I can quickly have all tablets in the room have the identical apps, appearance, etc.

I want all students to have the same apps available to them. Also, if a student screws with things, i want to quickly be able to get the tablet back to normal.

Can this be done? I will have 30 tablets in my room.

 

[Xanaki]

What you can do is get Titanium Backup from the market and used it to make a backup of everything from your tablet. You would also have to install Titanium backup from the other tablets but that shouldn't be a problem just log onto the market from those other tablets. Anyway once you have made a backup of your tablet connect your tablet to your PC and save the Titanium Backup folder to your PC, you can then connect your other tablets one at a time and save the Titanium Backup folder to each of them. Again one at a time you will have to do a restore using the Titanium Backup App on each of those but it should do the trick and give you what you're looking for. As for making a clone Image not sure how you would do that unless you used ROM Manager and made a backup of your ROM to use on those other tablets, but thats dangerous and I wouldn't advise it.

 

[TRS-80]

You could also maybe install a Dropbox or SugarSync client on each tablet, then whenever you made the Titanium backup of your tablet, just save it to your sync folder, and it would be instantly replicated to all 30 tablets. Then you just have to go to each tablet and restore the Titanium backup. But it saves you one of the two steps at least. And this would also probably be very handy for you to quickly distribute materials to everyone in the class (practically) instantaneously (assuming you have WiFi in the classroom).

Just remember that it's true all way sync, so any student could overwrite your base Titanium backup image in the sync folder. Just don't restore your own tablet from the sync folder and you should be fine though (i.e., only go one way with your backups: your tablet-> sync folder-> student tablets).

The reason I recommend SugarSync over Dropbox is that SugarSync give you 5GB with a free account, and Dropbox only 2GB. Also I have used the Android client and it works flawlessly. If you (or anyone else reading this) want to go that route, feel free to PM me for a referral link, then you and I both will receive 500MB of extra storage, for free!

 

[thollis]

I ended up getting an Archos 101 for my classroom. I only have one now, wanting to play with it before purchasing a classroom set. The problem i'm running into is I can't install Titanium Backup because the tablet is not rooted. I can't figure out how to root it. Any suggestions?