The last two weekends, I have been a speaker for my church's Christian Formation program. While the students are learning in classrooms, the parents all stay together for a presentation. The space where I was presenting has a great A/V system, including a mounted projector with HDMI input. So, I thought, let's see if I can give Apple TV a try in my presentation to these parents.
A few weeks before my presentation, I asked the parents "Does anyone have an iPad2 that they could bring to church?" I assured them that they would be the only person using it, and that it would help our discussion. We didn't need to be 1:1 - just enough for groups to take notes on during discussion.
It worked like a charm. Apple TV hooked up to projector, all of the iPads on the same wireless network (an old Apple extreme base station from home), AirPlay mirroring allowing each group to wirelessly project the notes from their small group discussion. As a teacher, I had all sorts of backup plans ready to go, but I never even opened my laptop, and I certainly did not need that printed set of notes I brought along in case all else failed. I used Keynote on my iPad with the presenter notes. During the group discussion part of the presentation, I just handed my iPad off for a group to use.
This made me realize - Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) need not just be for students. We need to get parents in on this as well. By far, parents are the ones owning and using these devices right now. But most parents do not realize the collaborative power they hold in their hands when they use a device like an iPad. None of the parents in my presentation knew how to turn on AirPlay, and I am guessing most did not know what technology (Apple TV) I was using to make it work. But we must show parents how this can benefit their children in the future.
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