Azu Ike

It was great having a chance to visit with so many vendors while I attended ISTE 2014 Conference a couple of weeks ago. Walking through the Exhibitors Hall, I was struck by just how much "stuff" is out there that educators need to vet. As I walked the Exhibit Hall I came across some unique products that I know will finds its place into the classroom. One of favorite new products is from Belkin and it is the Portable Tablet Stage , a light weight and portable stand for your tablet that can turn it into a great presentation stage. When you pair up the Belkin Portable Tablet Stage with the free Belkin Stage app (Available in Apple App Store & Google Play) you have a wonderful tool for making the classroom come alive. I had reviewed the Belkin Stage app earlier this year and it affords teachers a rich set of tools for turning an IOS or Android device into a great teaching tool. With your tablet set on the Belkin Portable Tablet Stage you can utilize your tablet's camera a...

As a professor of education, I am always looking at new technologies that can enliven my classroom and give me and my students tools to share ideas. When I purchased my Surface Pro 2 and Dell Venue 8, I learned about an Intel standard called Wi-Di (Wireless Display) which allows you to stream the contents of your tablet or computer to a HDMI  device without cables or wires. Many educator often refer to Wi-Di by using the term Miracast to describe  a peer-to-peer wireless screencasting standard formed via Wi-Fi Direct connections in a manner similar to Bluetooth.  Having access to Wi-Di would be great for the classroom because it would enable me to move about the classroom without the need to be tethered to the projector. Since I had half the solution in the Surface Pro 2 and Dell Venue 8 running Windows 8.1, all I needed was a Miracast receiver to enable me to use this technology. Researching which Miracast receiver would be best, I came across the ScreenBeam Pro Educatio...

Over the past year, I have been enamored with the number of unique products the IPEVO company has released and in the last two weeks they released the iZiggi HD Wireless Document Camera for IOS, Mac & PC which adds considerable value to their product line. The  iZiggi HD Wireless Document Camera is the perfect marriage of the iZiggi HD Camera and the IPEVO Wireless Station which I had reviewed in the past couple of months. Plugging the iZiggi HD Wireless Document Camera into the IPEVO Wireless Station created an ad-hoc WiFi network that would allow your iPad to connect through, which in turn would enable you to output the image under the document camera to your iPad without the need for a physical connection. Having  access to iZiggi HD Wireless Document Camera and the IPEVO Wireless Station opened up all kinds of possibilities in the classroom for having a truly portable device that could be moved about in the classroom. Teachers who have access to a projector ...

It has been a very busy spring trying to catch up from the cold and snowy winter. March was a busy month chock full of presentations and workshops. It was really exciting to be one of the organizers of the EDCampAccessNJ which was held at the College of St. Elizabeth. The highlight for me was putting together the venue and having all my colleagues there to share their expertise. It was a great day an I am hoping that we can make this an annual event. We had great support of the college and from vendors who gave us great give away and really were there in spirit. As much as I try to keep up the pace of technology is moving at lightning speed and while I try to do my best it has been a real challenge to keep up with all the new products but I am trying my best. In the last couple of weeks I have been testing out the following products which I will write more about in the upcoming weeks. These products include: Swivl- Robotic Camermate , Venier - Go Wireless Temp sensor, Livescribe 3 Sm...

I have been following the digital writing market for some time now and was intrigued when I learned about a new product from Tegware, called the Tegware Bagel , which marries an iPhone case with a small Boogie Board eWriter display, which was released at CES 2014. Having reviewed the original Boogie Board when it was released, I saw first-hand how liberating it was to use for jotting down notes and for doodling and have enjoyed using one ever since. In fact, I now keep a Boogie Board Jot 4.5  on my desk at work to write down reminders and telephone numbers instead of wasting paper. There is a certain beauty in the simplicity of technology when it is done right and in this regard, Tegware has found a sweet spot for using Kent Display's eWriter technology to marry it to an iPhone case. At first glance one might say why would you need to have another display when you have a digital device like an iPhone? That was my first reaction, but soon I realized that there are times when you j...

Last week was certainly an exciting week as all the new gadgets and gizmos were announced at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, NV. One of the gadgets I had my eyes on all last year was the Boogie Board Sync 9.7 from Improv Electronics which had given us a taste for the product at last Year's CES. Well it finally arrived at my home last week and I have been putting it though its paces. If you have used any of the other Boogie Boards they are simple and easy to use eWriters for doodling or drawing, but one of the features that many of us asked for was a way to save our drawings and notes which is now possible with the Boogie Board Sync. Weighing in less than a pound and powered by a rechargeable battery which should last all week this device complete with stylus is an easy tool to capture notes and ideas without the need for pen and paper. The Boogie Board Sync utilizes a 9.7 inch diagonal LCD display to write on. While some of the early reviews have complained about the light contrast when wr...

With the release of Adobe Presenter 9 comes the Drag and Drop feature which gives developers a way to create interactive drag and drop questions to a quiz. The Drag and Drop feature is intuitive and allows you to create a number of different types of questions that can include both text and pictures. In the Halloween example, I created a simple Drag and Drop quiz called the Candy Challenge that allows the user to match a picture of the candy bar with the name of the candy. In the screencast below you will see just how easy it is to create a Drag and Drop question in Adobe Presenter 9. To actually try the Candy Challenge click on the link .