ExplainEverything meets Zoom

I just discovered that there is a way to share screen in Zoom to access ExplainEverything, whose whiteboard function is way more useful, user-friendly, and powerful than Zoom's. Here's what I'll be doing for my synchronous class meetings this coming term! This walkthrough is written for Apple/iOS use, and it might be that the same process works for other operating systems.

First Impressions

Zoom, allow me to introduce you to ExplainEverything. It is a fantastic app that I've known for a long time. Its main purpose is as a digital whiteboard. Yes, Zoom, you have a sharable whiteboard, too, and I've written about best practices in how to use that tool while in a meeting with students. However, your whiteboard is not your main purpose and not where your power lies.

Many teachers leverage ExplainEverything as a presentation and annotation tool by loading existing files (photos, PowerPoint slides, PDFs…), projecting to the classroom, and then annotating those files as they are displayed. Because ExplainEverything also records audio and the video of what is happening in the app (the images and any annotations that are added), many educators use it to record video lectures for students to watch. Like all great apps, ExplainEverything is not free (there is a free version available to try out), and its educator bundle allows multi-user synchronous activities, like group editing of the same whiteboard in real time. Because I use ExplainEverything so much, I purchase the individual plan for the "unlimited slides" (and "unlimited projects") - think of this as being allowed to save an unlimited number of individual class presentations.

I've written extensively about ExplainEverything in the past. If you'd like to explain its vast uses more in depth, please consider reading "Explain Everything and blended learning,"  "Digital Classroom and Lecture Improv," "Animation in Live Presentation," "Tablets in Office Hours," "ExplainEverything Tips for Live Presentation," and "ExplainEverything & Quick-Loading Images."

ExplainEverything, meet my newer acquaintance, Zoom. You may have heard of Zoom already: it is a leader in the videoconferencing world, especially in education - so much so that, like its predecessors, the noun has already been verbed, so that two people now Zoom with each other.

The reason I wanted to introduce the two of you is because I think you would make a beautiful couple. ExplainEverything, you have incredible presentation and annotation tools, and you've been developing your real-time collaboration tools. Zoom, your abilities to connect multiple users in synchronous conversations and to allow users to "share" (display) windows on their devices to all participants at once are amazing. Together, you two have a lot of potential!

Courtship

It was years ago that I first described how to use two devices (e.g. laptop and tablet) to host a Zoom meeting (on the laptop) and display Zoom's whiteboard to the participants (using the tablet, which is easier to draw on by hand than using a laptop trackpad).

Although I've used ExplainEverything much longer than I've used Zoom, I don't know why it took me so long to realize that I had never thought to share my ExplainEverything screen in Zoom, instead of using Zoom's whiteboard.

Why would I do this? Like I mentioned above, not only does ExplainEverything have much more extensive (and user-friendly, I think) whiteboard tools, but also it can have a series of images (e.g. PowerPoint slides) loaded on sequential whiteboards (think "pages") that can be navigated through like a PowerPoint presentation, all while using the annotation tools. There are other approaches to the same end, like sharing a Google Slides or a PowerPoint screen and using their annotation tools, but I also find their annotation tools clunky. You can't do any of this with Zoom's whiteboard, which is basically only for drawing and typing on a white screen.

I'm so excited that this actually worked that I'm spending my Sunday afternoon writing this description of how to share an ExplainEverything presentation via Zoom. It is very straightforward, but there is one small detail to pay attention to…and none of the credit goes to me: the ability to share an iOS (iPhone, iPad) mobile device screen lies entirely with Zoom's development team. If you don't use iOS, I'll be interested in hearing from you whether other operating systems also have support in Zoom for sharing mobile device screens!

Let's get these two apps together!

Step 1: host a Zoom meeting from an Apple laptop connected to wi-fi

Step 2: ensure your mobile device (iPhone or iPad) that has ExplainEverything is connected to the same wi-fi network

Step 3: the Host (laptop) selects the "Share Screen" button (at the bottom center of the Zoom app screen):

and select "iPhone/iPad via AirPlay" (highlighted in blue in the image above). If this is the first time you've used this approach, Zoom will ask for your permission to download and install a plug-in that allows Zoom to connect to Apple devices using AirPlay. Select the "Share" button to advance to the next step of AirPlay screen sharing.

Step 4: the Zoom app will display an additional dialog box with instructions for how to connect your iPhone/iPad to your Zoom meeting:

in this case, my home wi-fi network that the host (laptop) is connected to is named "elegans-5," and Zoom is indicating that the mobile device must be connected to that same wi-fi network. Zoom has also provided the name of the "Device" to mirror to: this is the name of my laptop ("JoeMBPro") appended to "Zoom." Once those steps are taken, then your mobile device screen should appear in the Zoom window on the Host (laptop): it is now being shared to all meeting participants.

Step 5: open ExplainEverything, as you would normally, on your iPad/iPhone, and it will be displayed to all of the Zoom participants:

Here, the laptop on right is the host, and the AirPlay screen sharing has succeeded: the ExplainEverything app, from the tablet at left, is being shared. Also note that the participants don't see the ExplainEverything toolbars at the top, left, and bottom of the iPad screen (which is intended).

Now, from the iPad, the annotation and slide navigation tools can be used to move back and forth between slides in this ExplainEverything file and to annotate them by hand on the iPad touchscreen. Although ExplainEverything can perform audio and video recordings itself, I plan to use the Zoom recording tool, because it captures more than just the shared screen (e.g. the chat and the video thumbnail of the host/presenter, seen at upper-right in the screenshot above).

One caveat: I haven't been able to test this process on my school's wi-fi network, and I'm not sure whether the AirPlay connection will work as seamlessly there (depending on network configuration)

I am so glad I discovered this workflow (again: designed by Zoom; my addition is the idea of using it to screen share ExplainEverything, which is no great mental victory)! I hope you find it useful, as well; please let me know additional tips and any shortcomings that you discover.