Event Title
Coupling laptops and iPads to promote more interactivity with technology
Location
DSB, Room 110
Start Date
30-5-2013 2:30 PM
End Date
30-5-2013 3:45 PM
Session Type
Interactive Session
Description
Classroom experiences can be improved by interweaving content delivery with reflective activities that promote meaning making and inquiry. Our team was attracted to the prospect of using iPads to couple powerful presentation technology with the ease with which multi-touch tablets can be used for annotation and extemporizing. However, our experience was that iPads alone fall short of the functionality we sought because (1) the feature sets of iPad apps are usually limited, and (2) multi-touch technology doesn’t yet support overlaid applications (providing a graphics “transparency” for annotation of slides) because this would constitute a potential security breach in a multi-touch environment. We report on the use of an application called Doceri that allows us to merge the fuller feature set of our laptops with iPads. In this system, the laptop (connected to the projector) sends a mirrored video signal of its screen image to Doceri on the iPad. Doceri provides versatile annotation tools to annotate the laptop’s screen image, which is transmitted back to the laptop in real time. This technology enables much more extemporization and flexibility in classroom activities. We will illustrate the use of Doceri and then break into multiple stations of laptop-iPad pairs so that participants will be able to play with the technology.
Topic Designation
Teaching & Learning, Technology
Presenter Bio(s)
I earned my BS and MS at University of Massachusetts/Amherst, my PhD from Ohio University, held two postdoctoral research fellowships at Harvard, and became a tenured faculty member at the University of Hartford before moving to Quinnipiac University in 1999. I am a geneticist and evolutionary biologist, also with strong interests in the cognition of learning and learning technology. My current work concerns (1) teaching styles and technologies that promote learning with understanding and experience of the process of inquiry and (2) research exploring the attitudes of women in in Europe and North America about breastfeeding.
Coupling laptops and iPads to promote more interactivity with technology
DSB, Room 110
Classroom experiences can be improved by interweaving content delivery with reflective activities that promote meaning making and inquiry. Our team was attracted to the prospect of using iPads to couple powerful presentation technology with the ease with which multi-touch tablets can be used for annotation and extemporizing. However, our experience was that iPads alone fall short of the functionality we sought because (1) the feature sets of iPad apps are usually limited, and (2) multi-touch technology doesn’t yet support overlaid applications (providing a graphics “transparency” for annotation of slides) because this would constitute a potential security breach in a multi-touch environment. We report on the use of an application called Doceri that allows us to merge the fuller feature set of our laptops with iPads. In this system, the laptop (connected to the projector) sends a mirrored video signal of its screen image to Doceri on the iPad. Doceri provides versatile annotation tools to annotate the laptop’s screen image, which is transmitted back to the laptop in real time. This technology enables much more extemporization and flexibility in classroom activities. We will illustrate the use of Doceri and then break into multiple stations of laptop-iPad pairs so that participants will be able to play with the technology.