Friday, January 31, 2014

Air Sketch: Wirelessly Display iPad on Computer

I usually don't share paid apps on my blog, but Air Sketch is one that I can make the exception for. This is a great tool that will allow a teacher to be mobile in the classroom. It is easy to use, and stable. Air Sketch is a wireless whiteboard that allows may key elements that a teacher uses. Projecting to your computer is easy, stable, and real time.

Here is a list of what Air Sketch can do from the vender's site:

Features:

  • Wirelessly project PDF documents, images and live drawings over WiFi (3G is not supported).
  • Fast and fluid sketching on the iPad using your finger or 3rd party stylus (such as the Pogo Sketch).
  • Open PDF documents from Mail or other Apps in Air Sketch to wirelessly annotate and project them. Email the full annotated versions afterwards.
  • Real-time sketching to your browser: Strokes show up as you draw, network speeds permitting.
  • You can record them using any desktop recording tool, such as QuickTime's Screen Recording feature.
  • Or share your sketches with remote colleagues using any desktop sharing app such as iChat.
  • 5 drawing tools: Pencil, pen, marker, brush, and highligher.
  • A fully customizable color palette (tap on the selected color to edit it).
  • Fluidly zoom and pan using 2 fingers to edit your sketches in minute detail.
  • Instantly save and restore snapshots of your sketches using the camera tool.
  • Multi-step undo and redo.
  • Secure your web connection with a username and password.
  • You can even use Air Sketch peer-to-peer with a computer via an ad-hoc network when a WiFi hotspot is unavailable.
  • Air Sketch supports any HTML5-capable browser, which include the latest versions of:
    [Safari] [Firefox] [Google Chrome]
  • Note: Internet Explorer versions 8 and earlier do not support HTML-5, but Internet Explorer 9 will.


Like I said, Air Sketch is not free, but is well worth the $9.99. It allows teachers to step away form their desk and pass around an iPad for students to share their work with the class. Student can write on PDF documents and save screen shots for later use. It is like a mobile document camera!


Go to http://www.qrayon.com/home/airsketch and take a look.