DOCERI interactive whiteboard iPad App -- Review

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?”

Cyberbullying Smart Notebook slides for upper elementary and intermediate grades

I work at a 5th and 6th grade school that has a weekly class meeting time where we are working on character education and our anti-bullying curriculum.  This week I'm in charge of the cyberbullying lessons.  What I found to use on the Web was either way too young for my savvy 6th graders or felt too old for them.

So I created a SmartNotebook lesson for our teachers to use. It includes three scenarios to help the kids identify what cyberbullying is and a special "Cyber Cruel or Cyber Kind" self assessment quiz that helps the students identify which online behaviors are positive (like e-mailing a friend with a "Put UP" rather than a "Put DOWN") and which are negative (choosing to log into someone else's mail account because you know their password).

I'm really happy with the way that it turned out because I tried to make sure that it was very positive and oriented on equipping each student with an action plan that they can use when they feel that they are being cyberbullied.

It's available for a buck on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  

Who writes YOUR information? Getting students to quickly reflect on sources

In my library for the past two weeks we've been focusing on the mandatory 5th grade science fair, gearing up for our annual Japanese Internment history day where we invite members of our community to share their stories of the time of internment... and raising over 1,000 chum salmon in a tank.  I really love my job.

We've also been sneaking other research projects into the schedule whenever we can and this Jamestown themed information literacy idea grew out of my HUGE FRUSTRATION over trying to get students to spend time reflecting on who wrote their information.  They can talk the talk when I make suggestions about NOT using information written by other students but they actually don't walk the walk when they are out surfing the Web.

Now I don't want to make research more onerous but I would love to see students giving more attention to identifying the author behind their sources, without having to drag out a Web site evaluation rubric (OH! How I hate those!)

So here's my new thought.  It's an incentive chart.

I created a chart with markers that were themed for their Jamestown research project.  Before starting their research we quickly discussed the positives and drawbacks to certain types of information.  Students were then divided into teams.  Each team wrote their team's name next to one of the marker colors on the right.  As they researched their topics independently they identified the type of resource they used and dragged a marker over into the graph. 

At the end of the research session, we talked about which resources received the most users.
You can download my FREE SmartBoard Notebook slide that I used for Jamestown from my Teachers Pay Teachers store but I'm really trying to throw out the idea that we need to find quick and creative ways of giving students more of an incentive to reflect on who writes the information that they choose to use for a project.

Since I was uploading this Jamestown activity, I also uploaded the mini-novel study that I created a few years ago to help my teachers use three different Jamestown novels in their classroom. It focuses on the real historic character, Samuel Collier.  TWO authors used him as the basis for their historical fiction novels and their takes on his personality were very different.  This novel study is linked up at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

THANKSGIVING! World Harvest Festivals!

Looking for a different way to celebrate Thanksgiving with your class this year?  I'm promoting the notion that kids need to learn more about the world by sharing information about harvest festivals around the world. Here's my FREE research idea which can be downloaded on my Teachers Pay Teachers Web store!

It uses some ideas that I've been working on as a part of my THANKSGIVING: WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE collection of ideas.  There's a SmartBoard Notebook file that is very interactive and contains some really cool original clip art and there's also a PowerPoint and paper version of it as well.  The paper version would make a great Thanksgiving themed literacy center!

WikiGames!

WikiGame: This could become very addictive!!! This is a game where you race around Wikipedia trying to navigate from one article to another through the fewest clicks.  It's like "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon."  I just won with Eight clicks from Hilary Clinton to Frogs. 

My own, much more basic "Wikipedia the Game" is an attempt to help kids become more mindful and reflective about using Wikipedia. It is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It's also one of the activities in my "Info Bootcamp" unit. It simulates the element of chance in creating an article that can be edited and "improved" by anyone out there.  It's only available for SmartBoard Notebook right now.  It's best run as a full class activity.  Play begins with a roll of a die.  For each side of the die, a student has to do one of six things: either add their own fact, reveal a fact from a pile of useful information, reveal a fact from a pile of opinion facts, REMOVE something, or allow the hacker to add something by rolling the "hacker die."  Game play can go on indefinitely but I usually limit the game to less than ten minutes.  That is more than enough time to get my point across that there is some chance in how good a Wikipedia article is. 

I've created three "game board" slides that on three subjects that my students are very familiar with: SpongeBob, pizza, and the Sasquatch. 

What I've learned from playing this with several classes now is that my fifth grade students are more engaged with my ACTUAL lesson, which is to point out some ways that they can begin to distinguish whether a Wikipedia article has merit.   Some of these points include looking at the amount of references and notes at the end of the article, noticing whether the page has had a rating, and looking for other signs that the article needs to be "cleaned up."

There's also a Wikipedia article "Flow Chart" so that kids can see that there are many hands involved in the process.

I also make the point that sometimes teachers will insist that students not use Wikipedia and that my goal as a librarian is to make them aware of other sources that have greater credibility with their teachers.

Some of the things that I've discovered about fifth graders while playing the game is that they get the difference between opinion and fact.  They noticed that sometimes the best facts can get removed from a Wikipedia article, making it less strong.

Since I chose to use the Sasquatch legend as one of my game boards, I have the opportunity to talk about articles that have to be protected because they are controversial.   The Sasquatch article was once a big battle ground between the cryptid believers and the non-believers.  The Big Foot followers kept writing the article as if he truly existed and they had incontrovertible proof. Wikipedia finally had to come down on the side of those who are still skeptical and have blocked editing on this article. 

Finally, I've come across Wikipedia's actual FAQ for Schools!  This is what Wikipedia has to say about credibility:

It is possible for a given Wikipedia article to be biased, outdated, or factually incorrect. This is true of any resource. One should always double-check the accuracy of important facts, regardless of the source. In general, popular Wikipedia articles are more accurate than ones that receive little traffic, because they are read more often and therefore any errors are corrected in a more timely fashion. Wikipedia articles may also suffer from issues such as Western bias, but hopefully this will also improve with time

I'm in agreement with them. My school librarian's point that I try to make is that taking any resource at face value leads to sloppy scholarship at best.