Hall Davidson can really “rock it”. At Sunday’s DEN Pre-con before PETE&C he shared some cool ways to go digital with some very non-digital items.  In his first session, Build a Digital Classroom from a Cardboard Box, Hall demonstrated how a Rock-It portable vibrating speaker can amplify the audio on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad by simply sticking it onto a cardboard box and connecting it via standard 3.5mm jack to your device. Rock-it by Orig Audio seems to be able to stick to just about any object as seen in this how-to video. You won’t have to watch all 5:46 minutes to get the idea.

I must have been living under a rock since the Rock-it has been around for several years now, and you can purchase  a 2.0 or a 3.0 model, compared by a user in this video. Both are available on Amazon and other online retailers in the $15 to $20 range. I can see how handy this device would be if you want to share an audio clip, say a student voice recording, or just music from your i-device that the whole class can hear.

A large piece of foam core allowed Hall to “smartly” turn that board into a touch surface right on a table top by using the Epson Brightlink projector which has built in touch recognition software. You can also connect other devices over its wireless LAN to display anything from your handheld device as well as your computer. It is now available in a table top version as well as the traditional wall-mount.  It comes with two pens and Hall called on volunteers to demonstrate various activities on the board such a Venn diagrams, Line Rider (another opportunity for the laws of physics as a flash game or an app in iTunes), and Incredibox.  

Stay tuned for a list of great apps shared in the second session!