The Tech Find of the Year!

Thanks to an Art teacher at my school, I have found a classroom changing application that I have to share:  AirServer.

AirServer is a program that gets downloaded to your computer.  Via AirPlay, which is on all IPads except 1st generation, the image on the screen of the IPad is projected onto the computer's monitor, which, in most classrooms, is projected on the Interactive White Board. Simply install AirServer, on the Apple device, turn on AirPlay.  Find the computer that has AirServer registered, then select "Mirroring". Apple TV does this same thing, but Apple TV costs $99.  AirServer costs $11.99 for the educator license.  AirServer offers a 7 Day free trial.  If you use iOS devices in your classroom, I suggest you try it out.  You will be glad that you did.

Here is how I used AirServer this week:
If you have read any of my previous posts, you know that I love cooperative learning.  Cooperative learning structures are a daily event in my classroom.  I do not teach in a 1:1 school, but we use BYOD often and I regularly pull our school's IPad cart into my room.  IPads are great for many reasons, but I am often looking for a way for students to "publish" what they create on these devices.

This week we were working on Pre-Writing strategies.  My level 2 students are preparing for their first "timed-write" which is an AP style writing.  For our first writing assessment, I like to give them a heads up on what they will be writing about in order to give them an opportunity to prepare.  We base our writing on a silly picture or two.  In groups, they create a list of words that would be used in a story about the image that I show them.  Then, they create an introductory sentence for the paragraph.  I like to have groups share out and usually I resort to having student write on the limited space on my classroom white boards, but the IPads offer much more of a interesting way to do this activity.

The IPad gets passed around the group and each student adds to the list, when the group is finished their list (which we just created on the Notepad App) gets projected on my Interactive Whiteboard via Airserver.  If a previous group took one of their words, they then have to replace it with another word.  We end up with a great word wall to help with their writing.

Then groups brain-stormed and came up with an opening sentence for a story about this picture.  We added each group's sentence to Padlet and voted on our favorite.  That sentence will be each person's first sentence in their timed write.  In doing this each student at least has a starting point for their writing, where they go from their is up to them.


I am so excited about this program.  I regularly use my IPad in my classroom.  All of my documents are in my OneDrive account which now I can effortlessly project in my room.  The possibilities are endless...

One caution that I would like to lay out there, students love the fact that they can simply project what is on their IPad onto the Interactive White Board.  We did have to have a discussion with some of the less mature classes on proper etiquette.  And, ANY student with an iOS device can project.  In the settings you can lock it down so that a password is necessary to project, then you, as the teacher, can decide whether or not to release the password. It's easy to change the password, so that a different class period could have a different password.

If you use an Apple Device, try it out.  There is so much that can be done with this program!