Professor’s Classroom iPad App Debuts at Consumer Electronics Show

A professor from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is trying to turn the iPad into a new kind of classroom tool that lets students draw on a shared canvas.

The new iPad app is being shown off this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by a company called LectureTools. The company grew out of a project created by Perry Samson, a professor of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

For the app to be fully utilized, all of the students and the professor would need either an iPad or a laptop loaded with the software as they sit in the classroom. Then the instructor could use the iPad app to present slides that would show up on every student’s screen and allow any student in the room to annotate the slides or ask a question. For instance, students could highlight points on a map using their iPads, and the group of responses would be visible—anonymously—to the entire class. Mr. Samson said the app freed him from the podium.

Posted on 01/12/2012