Doceri

Doceri is another remote control app like SplashTop with a whole slew of extra features that could improve the effectiveness and scope of your instruction. The app transforms your iPad into what is essentially a remote tablet that can control any linked desktop (PC or Mac). The app also features a bevy of whiteboard/chalkboard/map backgrounds on which you can write. As a bonus, you can record whatever you write and even record your voice on top of it to create a presentation that can be shared with your students. Everything you do is projected on the screen of the controlled desktop, which is hopefully connected to a projector, television, or SmartBoard. There is also some cool connectivity through AppleTV.

How does it work in the classroom?

This is an exciting new way to play "Pass the Chalk," for sure. You can pass the iPad to a student in your class and whatever he writes on the tablet will be projected on a SmartBoard or (even better) a classroom HD television. That alone should help alleviate any anxiety many students may experience when they have to stand in front of a room full of students and write on a board.

It's also very easy to write notes on the board while switching back and forth between the web browser or videos. Even from an athletics standpoint, things like plays can be drawn on the iPad from across the room while the team watches, and you can just record what you draw to play it time and time again, step by step.

Doceri works extremely smoothly and very fast if you have a solid internet connection. This program ups the ante for SMART Technologies, and I don't know if SMART can answer. It allows you to do everything that SMART can do with SmartBoard, only now you can do it with the sleekness of an HD TV. Really cool.