Doceri is an interactive whiteboard app for the iPad with
the great $50 price point and the thirty day trial. I recently saw it at the
NCCE Conference,
which is the Northwest region’s educational computing conference. I decided to try it out in my library for the
last two days. This is what I’ve
discovered:
1.
Doceri
connects the iPad to a computer wirelessly.
It was reasonably easy to do this, although I kept on having to make
sure that my iPad app had the right IP address for my computer. The
Doceri Desktop software did indicate what
my IP address was at the connection screen.
I appreciated how simple troubleshooting this was. There is also the potential to use a QR code
for connection but I didn’t choose to do this.
2.
So once I logged on, it was pretty easy to use the
Doceri iPad app as a mouse. I was
specifically trying to see how often I had to go to the computer to do
something because I couldn’t do it with
Doceri
I was able to click around and play Safari Montage clips (my video streaming
service) for students and only had to approach the computer at the end of the
clip so that I could escape out of full screen using the escape key.
3.
I used my
SMART Board Notebook slides that I already
created as a part of the lesson. What I
discovered was that I couldn’t manage to manipulate the screen using the
SMARTNotebook interface. I couldn’t draw by
selecting the SMART Notebook pen and I couldn’t drag elements around the
Notebook screen. BUT…
4.
I could add a
Doceri layer on top of the
Notebook screen and was easily able to write text upon the Notebook slide. I could have saved it as a
Doceri drawing as
well. I really liked writing on
Doceri. I did use a Targus stylus with
the rubber tip but I can see where the
Doceri pen would be a vast improvement
upon this. I did test this out at the
conference and it was very responsive.
5.
I did use the built-in
Doceri keyboard and it
did work well. It is smaller and with
more keys on one screen than the actual iPad keyboard so a user will NOT be
using ten fingers to type on it but will
either use the stylus or the hunt and peck method.
6.
I tried to do a lesson which required me to be
able to copy text from one screen to another.
I could NOT figure out how to select text for copying and pasting. I’d be very happy to learn how to do this but
the
Doceri help information didn’t seem to have anything on this one. It’s my assumption that you really can’t do
that on
Doceri.
7.
I did not test out the feature which basically
records all the steps that you make when presenting a lesson so that the lesson
can advance without you. I did see that
demonstrated at the conference. There’s
a great model lesson where the United States are slowly drawn in the order that
they entered the Union. I can see where
this would be a nice thing but I’m trying to find an application for it in how
I teach.
8.
Bottom line… for $50 bucks??? It’s AWESOME!!!! Especially if most of what
you do is write on your white board. I’m
also thinking that it’s going to improve as well.
9.
I’m also thinking that this could be something
that would be useful for the special education kid in the general education
classroom who simply can’t come to the front of the room to present something
on the whiteboard but yet wants to contribute.
Put the
Doceri on that student’s iPad and occasionally say, “Okay, it’s
your turn to drive. Can you tell us what
you think?”
This week is my school's annual salmon release and I'm in charge of it! The salmon tank lives in the hall right outside of the library. The above photo is a picture of them as they are turning from alevin to fry! You can still see their yolk sacs hanging down in the above picture. This is before they actually started swimming. The stream is right behind our school so we actually walk down there. We've got this great ampitheater where the kids sit and then we send two kids down at a time. Here's my challenge. I have to keep the kids who are waiting entertained and it is OFTEN RAINY! So I've created this Jeporady game that is hopefully completely waterproof! It uses macrame cords to connect sticks together to make the Jeporady grid. I used a hot glue gun to attach wooden clothespins to the cords. Then I made and laminated question cards in four categories: Salmon Spelling, Salmon Challenge (harder, multistepped questions), Know Your Fish, and Know the Puget Sound. The "Know the Puget Sound" category allowed me to give the kids some greater knowledge about the problem of stormwater runoff. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out and it looks great when it is hung on the tree in front of the ampitheater. 
