#SMARTkapp Fits Nicely In My Collaborative Classroom #edchat

I'm happy to share how the SMART kapp has worked in my classroom and I how I plan to get the most out of it with my students. Here is a short video that explains what kapp is and how it can be used. 

The main reason that I love kapp is that it is a collaboration tool. For my classroom, I look for things that will make collaboration better and easier for me and my students. Kapp fits those requirements. 

Using kapp is very easy to do. Here is a great graphic from SMART that accurately depicts setting up kapp. 

I currently have the 42" model hanging in my classroom and I have been using it with my students.

Here is some important info on the app.

You will notice there are four differences between the free version and the paid version. I upgraded to the yearly paid version to really try things out.

The pin protection for the live web view is not a concern for me. There might be something I do not want the world to see, but I have not encountered it yet.

Watermark-free PDFs is a cool feature if you are going to use anything created on the kapp for a presentation. I could see where that would be important, but it has not been an issue in my class yet.

Persistent URL for live sharing is awesome. I can create one link and that is the link that my students can return to over and over again on their iPad. This can be turned on or off and a passcode can be entered if needed. This is nice for long term use of the kapp in the classroom.

Concurrent live remote viewers is important for the classroom. 5 students would be ok for small group work on different days, but if there is something that wanted to be viewed by others on their devices, 5 would not be enough. For the smaller 42" board, I do not see this as a huge problem, but for the lager 84" board, there might be many more people around a room using it, more than 5 viewers might be needed. Also, if a class is working with another class remotely, having more that 5 open spots for viewing could be a cool way for the classes to collaborate.

From the app

Overall, the upgrade is worth it for the first year to see if how often you will use the different features. You could always go monthly if you feel you will only need it for certain lessons. It is nice to have those options.

Here are some of the things I have been doing with kapp.

Note Reminders:

Here is a screenshot from my phone of the SMART kapp app. This is what I wrote on my board and it was captured by kapp and sent to my phone after I scanned the QR code. Everything that I write on the board appeared on my phone. If I erased something, it erased from my phone. It worked smoothly with the Bluetooth connection. 

SMART kapp works with your existing Evernote account so users can save their work and start with a fresh screen. Simply pushing the camera icon will save the work and it will be available on the app. Here are a collection of the different items saved. 

Once I select an item, I can choose to text it, mail it, or send it to Evernote. The send it to Evernote part is something that makes the most sense for me. Since I have shared notebooks with my students, I can send any of these notes to all of my students by simply sending it to the shared notebook. Better yet, when students are working on different projects, they could use the board, scan the QR code and start sharing their work in their own Evernote notebooks. All of their work can be quickly and easily saved. I'm hoping for Google Drive integration in the future. 

Here are some stats on the 42" kapp

Here are some stats on the 84" kapp

One of the things I have been working on this first half of the school year is creating a Makerspace for the my school. I have been pulling in resources from everywhere to make this happen and I have to say that the kapp is a perfect edition to my classroom and it will be great in a Makerspace. Kapp is all about collaboration and that is what I want to see in the Makerspace. This product is perfect for the type of work students have asked to do in our space. It is a very cool device that will only grow to have more bells and whistles as time moves forward. I couldn't be happier to have one in my classroom.

Check out SMART kapp and see how it might fit into your learning environment.

SMART sent me a kapp for the purposes of this review.