Getting students hands on technology ... finally!

Loving technology but being limited to what I have in the classroom is a constant source of frustration for me over the past few years.  You'd think that working in a relatively high tech school with wireless would be wonderful, and it is BUT when you are situated in a portable classroom, those wireless signals do not make it into the classroom :(    There are literally TWO rooms in our entire school that have no access and mine has to be one of them - not fair when I'm a student in a graduate course focused on teaching and learning with technology.

So with the situation not changing anytime soono I have had to get creative - one of my dreams for my math classroom was to be able to freely move around the classroom with my tablet and have groups of students be able to share what they were working on with the class.  The video cable attaching my tablet and projector up to this point had nixed this idea.  At a professional day put on by the district I had observed a document camera in use for projecting - yet another idea that was completely not doable and out of the budget as well.  There must be a way!

The seeds of an idea started to grow when I came across a wireless display adapter (Warpia Wireless USB PC to Video Adapter) that would connect my tablet and projector without the cable.  Score!  The adapter's limitation is 30 feet but no where in my classroom is it possible for me to get more than 30 feet away from the projector so this should not be an issue.  I can't wait to make use of this in my class where I can hand the tablet to a group of students so that they can write up their work for all to see.  I'd say this is really putting technology in the hands of the students! 

As an added thought this evening, I pulled out my webcam to see if I could take this whole sharing thing to another level.  Now on top of just having kids using the tablet themselves, I could now use the camera to drop by a student's desk and take a photo of the work to project onto the screen.  This could be then used for a class discussion either right away or saved for later. 

With this wireless device I will no longer we chained to the desk (yippee!) and it is making me very excited about getting back into the class where I can finally give all of these new little pieces of technology a try.