MuseForJews

Screen sharing options

So . . .  you’ve got great stuff on your iPad, and you want to project it to your SMART Board, but you don’t have *that* dongle . . . or

You want your students to take turns displaying what they’ve created, but you don’t have a projector . . . or

You have a projector, but you don’t want to deal with the hassle of having kids come up to front to connect then disconnect . . . or

You want to “drive” your students’ iPads and make sure that they’re looking at what you want them looking at . . .

Solutions?

Reflector: if the devices you want to mirror are iPhones or iPads, consider installing Reflector on your SMART Board or projector connected laptop. Reflector turns your laptop into a wireless receiver, and using Airplay, you can just choose it and mirror whatever is on your iPhone or iPad. What’s really nice is that the audio is mirrored as well, which was a real nuisance with using a dongle to connect the iPad to a SMART Board.

Not using iPhones or iPads? Consider using Mirroring360 by Splashtop. Mirroring360 does the same thing, only you’re not restricted to iOS devices.

These are slick, easy-to-use solutions that are not very expensive. It’s made a huge difference in my non Apple TV classrooms, and the students love it when they can share what they’ve created on their tablets with the rest of the class.

What about when you want to mirror from your device to the students’ devices? Here are some options:

Splashtop Classroom: This is a cloud-based product that requires you to pay an annual usage fee. The cool thing is that your users download a free app, you install the free Streamer software on your computer, and you can mirror what’s on your laptop to your students’ devices. You can also give control to a student and he or she can interact with whatever is on your computer, or he or she can share what’s on theirs. Very nice!

Nearpod: Nearpod is by no means just for mirroring, but it can certainly be used for that.

Handouts: Handouts, the app that lets you distribute a handout to your students and get them back, can also be used to distribute documents to a number of devices.

How do you share?

November 5, 2014 - Posted by Tktchr | Technology | educational technology, screen sharing