- One of the most powerful features in Zoom is its myriad
of screen-sharing options.
Let's explore that today on Dotto Tech.
(lighthearted music)
Steve Dotto here, how the heck you doin' this fine day?
And today, we're gonna take a look
at the screen-sharing options that are built into Zoom.
Some of them are very basic,
but some of them are really amazing.
I think you will feel giddy when you learn them.
Now, this video is just the latest
in a series of videos that we're producing
teaching you how to use and get more out of Zoom.
You'll find a couple of the videos listed here,
but for the entire list, check out the show notes
or the description below, and there we have a link
to the entire playlist of Zoom videos
for you to explore at your leisure.
But what we are going to explore right now
are screen-sharing options,
which are, of course, a terrific tool
if you're presenting content if you're teaching.
Now because of the increased emphasis on security,
Zoom has added now, for the host of a meeting,
under the security, a new menu item here called security
where you can turn on and off screen sharing
for participants so you can control
who has the ability to share screens
and who doesn't have the ability to share screens
within your meeting.
But for most hosts,
you're gonna wanna be sharing screens at some point,
so let's see how we do that
and what our options are.
I think that you'll be surprised by a few of them.
Okay, let's dive into screen sharing now.
And we, of course, find the controls here
at the bottom of the screen where it says share screen.
Now I've got it set up with the basic sharing options.
We can share our desktop, a whiteboard.
We can share our mobile device.
I am on an Apple system here
so I can share my iPad or iPhone here.
You can also share a browser window
or an application window.
You can share the different windows.
So, the way that most people will screen share is just
with the simplest option right here,
which is share your desktop.
By choosing to share your desktop,
you're gonna share whatever you see on the desktop,
so this is a great way
to share any documents that you have open
or any application that you have open with your community.
And you just do it by just clicking on share
and clicking share.
You wanna be careful to make sure that you have,
if you are gonna be sharing any sound coming
through your computer,
that you turn on the share computer sound,
or the audio won't come through.
You'll just get a little trickle
of it coming through the mic,
but you won't share the actual audio
that's within the computer.
Now where this is really important is when you decide
to start sharing application windows such as videos.
Now video sharing is not optimal on Zoom.
I think it does a good job, but it doesn't do a great job.
Other meeting services will allow you to upload a video
to the cloud and then share it from the cloud.
Zoom forces you to share it from your desktop,
which has some inherent limitations as far as bandwidth.
But they help to overcome that
by allowing you to click here to share video and sound
and optimize the screen share for the video clip.
So, it's gonna optimize the feed
of the video to make sure that the video uploads
at a bit rate that the internet can support.
It will probably downgrade the quality
of the video slightly, but it'll make sure
that it can broadcast to your community.
So let's just show that.
I'm gonna share,
I got an old-school video here.
This video is a way-back video from the 1990s
when I did a TV series called Cruisin' the Internet,
but this is what we could share.
♪ Turn on ♪
♪ Boot up ♪
♪ Come on line ♪
♪ I'm cruisin' the internet ♪
♪ Cruisin' the internet ♪
That was good times doing that TV series.
All right, so that is how you can easily share video
to your community.
And you notice that the audio came through.
Well, you would notice on the other end
that the audio had come through,
and that feed would be a good quality feed to everybody.
So that's a way you can share instructional
or entertaining videos
or any type of video content through that.
The other screen-sharing options that we have
is the ability to actually share other application windows,
such as a presentation window.
And one of the things that I think
that we will often wanna do is share browser windows.
So, I've got a browser window up here,
and in this particular case,
I've got just a spreadsheet or a Google Doc open.
Sharing your window this way is terrific
if you're gonna be working on collaborative documents
together where you're entering figures,
and you're talking with people,
and you're working collaboratively on the same document.
Screen sharing on that document is a great way to make sure
that everybody's on the same page
and focused on the same part of the document.
You might think, if you're doing a collaborative document,
that sharing the document and allowing everybody to be
in that document at the same time
as you're editing it in a group is a good idea.
But it's not because people are looking
at different areas of the document,
and if you're moving your cursor,
and you're saying look at this spot right here,
they don't know what you're pointing at
because you're pointing at it on your computer,
but they don't see it on theirs.
So, screen sharing collaborative documents
as you're editing them, I think, is a good way to do things.
Oh, one note here.
Often when people start screen sharing,
they panic a little bit about getting out
of the screen share.
You can always get out by hitting the escape key
or looking for this red button.
Now, I've got the screen-sharing controls pinned
to the top of the screen here,
and I can actually have them pinned to the bottom.
They call it the doc, the bottom as well.
But just by clicking
on that red button there will stop the share
as will hitting the escape key on your keyboard
if you wanna escape that way.
So that is the most basic of screen sharing.
But what I really get excited about is the ability
to share my iPad.
Why do I like sharing my iPad screen?
I like sharing my iPad
because I don't like using the whiteboard.
When we go to share a whiteboard,
if you're just sharing a whiteboard,
you've got a stylus and a pen that you can work with,
and you can type on the screen.
But I find that writing and drawing with the mouse,
I just don't feel like I have any measure of control.
I really don't like sharing a whiteboard screen.
But I do like the idea of being able to doodle on the screen
and be able to make notes.
So, I've got the iPad Pro,
which has Apple's wonderful stylus.
So let me show you how elegantly the sharing works
for using the iPad.
When you open this,
they tell you exactly what to do step-by-step.
To open your screen,
so, make sure you're connected to the correct Wi-Fi network
to open your screen sharing.
And I do that by swiping down on the iPad
and opening screen sharing, screen mirroring, excuse me.
And selecting the device.
Then it will allow you to select and choose that device.
And choose Steve's Mac mini,
and boom, there is my screen being shared now.
(laughs) This is so cool.
There is my iPad.
And now I can work on any of my different tools.
Here's my Notepad app.
I can write away on my notebook.
If I'm a teacher, and I need to do equations,
you've got the ability to do all of that.
Plus, oh, I gotta show you this.
Actually, let me just jump into YouTube.
And let's say I want, for some reason I want to,
Oh, look, there's a great video
that's just been posted with me in it.
So, this is so cool.
If I take my Apple pencil,
and I swipe up from the bottom right-hand side
of the screen, it turns it into an annotation screen.
It takes a basic screenshot.
So, I can then take my pen tool,
and I can markup the screen,
and I can point to who's that good looking guy
in this video.
And I hope I'm getting more views than that guy is getting.
Isn't that cool?
This gives you so much control over the,
that screenshot, over the environment.
I love the ability to be able to use the stylus,
the Apple stylus, in my iPad.
I think this is one of the most valuable educational tools
that we have.
But before I leave this, let's go back,
and let's show you an even easier way
'cause when wireless networking is always
ah, it's gonna work.
It should work.
But we also have the ability to connect just like this.
Plug in the USB cable, which I have plugged in,
click share, and it pulls the screen,
and it pulls the iPad screen in directly at that point.
So once again, I've got the ability to go in,
and I can do all of my note-taking, et cetera.
Yeah, let's change the color of that.
We should have some fun,
Making sure you realize all of the different things
that you can do with it.
You can, of course, type in the screen.
I can put in the text tool right there.
Doing.
That's 'cause I have the keyboard attached to my iPad,
but you get the picture.
What an incredibly valuable tool we have for screen sharing
using the iPad.
But it gets better.
How can it get better, Steve?
These are just the basic features.
Take a look at what we have in the advanced features.
In the advanced features,
you can incorporate music and sound.
So, you can have some music playing in the background,
which I can see some value in.
But take a look at this option here.
This is the one that I think, again,
opens some really exciting new doors.
You can connect a second camera,
and dynamically switch back and forth.
What does that mean for an instructor?
Well, if you have a whiteboard set up behind you,
you can just be drawing away on the whiteboard,
and you can be using a second camera that's pointed at it.
Or you can have the whiteboard right here,
and you can be working at it this way.
You see right here, I've set up a second Logitech C920,
just a cheap webcam.
I've set it up here,
and I'm going to show you how you can view that.
Now, when it comes up right now,
the first one it's going to is terrible.
This is my eyesight camera, which is plugged into,
which is in my monitor here.
Terrible camera.
Watch what happens when I switch cameras.
There we are.
That's that camera there.
It's here, so if I didn't have,
If I wasn't screen sharing as I was,
maybe I have a whiteboard here,
and I'm gonna be drawing on the whiteboard
as I'm instructing,
I can have it zoomed in.
If I'm a painting instructor, I can be painting on it,
and I can switch back and forth between my main camera feed,
which I will do right now.
Back to my main camera,
and it takes a couple of clicks to go back
to the secondary camera.
But you can go back and forth.
Think about the potential of that for instruction.
Anything physically that you have to show,
if you like to write on a piece of paper,
and you don't wanna necessarily have an iPad,
you can write on that piece of paper,
and you can showcase it this way.
This screen-sharing option is outstanding for educators.
Just think about these options that we have.
We can share our desktop.
We can share applications.
We can share videos.
We can share a whiteboard.
We can share an iPad or tablet
or our smartphone with our community.
Or we can share another camera
and have a second angle
where we can physically be describing something.
So many sharing options, so easy to access all within Zoom.
I hope you've found today's video to be useful,
and if you have, I've got a few favors to ask.
First, please give this video a thumbs up,
and if you know of an educator, a teacher,
or a person who will benefit from understanding
how to screen share more efficiently in Zoom,
then please share this video with them
and help us spread the word.
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and we will see you next time right here on Dotto Tech.
Until then, I'm Steve Dotto.
Have fun storming the castle.