Sunday, October 23, 2011

Making a Splash in the classroom with Splashtop!

This is not a commercial endorsement, this is a product I just found out about from another teacher when they saw I had an Ipad.

If you visit www.splashtop.com you find a website that make various products for the classroom that integrate iPhone/iTouch/iPad as remote interfaces to control your 'teacher' computer, whether it be a PC or Mac.  It can not only control but stream some items, or let everything that would happen on the remote computer happen on your remote device.  This is really powerful when combined with an iPad.  Even video can be streamed to the iPad.  Or you can consider your remote screen now having a touch screen interface.

Your iPad can display FLASH based site, but your computer can.  So when you hve your computer screen redirected to your iPad, you can see and interact with FLASH based sites.

The software you need to run on your PC or Mac, they actually give that away, aren't they nice?  You just have to buy the application you would run on your remote device.

Depending on the technology and connectivity you already have in the classroom, an investment between $0.99 and $9.99 could have a beneficial impact in your classroom.

The key program you may want is Splashtop Remote Desktop for iPad.  The good news is, at the time of this posting, it is on sale for $2.99, down from $19.99, the latest version just being updated on 9/27/11.
You can practice at home, and then if allowed to install the desktop client at school, you are good to go!

  The $9.99 Splashtop Whiteboard price is also a special for October, then it goes back to $19.99

Splashtop Whiteboard Demo video


useful for you?


Splashtop Remote Desktop






I'm going to the APPSTORE and getting Splashtop Whiteboard now!

Update: 10/26/11
I got the program for my Ipad2. I can make it work just fine at home on a laptop and dekstop machine. It worked much more accurately on the Windows host machine when doing the whiteboard stuff, when I drew it was right under my finder. When I used with my Macbook, the finger was below where ever it drew, so making lines meet was very difficult, as was clickign on small things. Didn't see any way to calibrate.

Tried on one machine at school and just not finding the machine yet. Looking for work around.

3 comments:

  1. Alvin, Thank you so much for posting this. I was looking for a way to do this in my classroom. This will be the very next app i buy! I have a macbook and a smartboard with a projector. Are you already using this in class? How can i connect it wirelessly to the projector, so the students can see it on the whiteboard?

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  2. This sounds like a program districts and teachers should invest in. I like that the low cost makes it affordable to individual teachers. I will defiantly look into this program.

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  3. Kimber, the iPad or iPhone would be on the same wireless network and therefore the video stream is sent over the network. I'd love to be able to do this but our district tech department has a fit anytime someone mentions using the web for doing anything other than looking at web sites.

    If you don't have a laptop/desktop but still want to do wireless presentations, an alternative is an Apple TV. With iOS 5, they added the ability to mirror video from the iPad to the Apple TV over the wireless network. They run $100 but if all you have is a projector and an iOS device, it's a lot cheaper than buying a computer. On a side note my parents love their Apple TV. I got them hooked on Netflix Streaming.

    Apple TV (2011). Available from http://www.apple.com/appletv/

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