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.

SplashTop

Looking for a free cheap for a way to control your desktop PC from anywhere on your network? SplashTop makes it happen. Here's what you need:

• Download this app for your iPad or even your iPhone (!)
• Download SplashTop Streamer on the desktop you want to control

The streamer works on PC as well as Mac, which is good news for the ever-growing population of loyal Apple fans, and the app will cost you $1.99 for your iPhone or $4.99 for the iPad. The Streamer service is free. Once installed and after a brief, easy set-up period, you'll be able to control your desktop or laptop from the comfort of your iDevice as if it was touchscreen-operated.

How does it work in the classroom?

If you're running a classroom management software, for instance, SMART Sync, then you can use SplashTop on the same machine running SMART Sync and use those features on your iDevice while you aren't near your desktop. In other words, you can have the ability to constantly circumnavigate your classroom and never have to take your eyes off a single student's computer screen.

Even if you're in the school building but there is a substitute in your classroom for various reasons, you can use SplashTop to monitor what students are doing in your class even while you're away as long as you can access the network. You can even install the SplashTop Streamer on all student computers and access those machine whenever you need to access them.