Drawing on screen

One of the more common questions we’ve been asked in the CTIL team is how to incorporate hand drawn content – such as equations, graphs etc.

I saw a tweet from James Clay, leading to his post on just this issue  – using a tablet as a separate whiteboard.

To summarise his post –

• Start a teams meeting in the app, on the main computer.
• Join the same meeting from your tablet.
• Go to share, and select “screen” – that will share everything on the tablet’s screen.

I’ve tested it, both with an iPad and an Android Samsung tablet with success. A couple of points that I realised

• Make sure that both the audio and mike are off on the tablet, to avoid any feedback.
• Get the drawing package ready – so you can quickly switch to it.
• Don’t forget to leave the team meeting on the tablet, once you’ve left it on the main device.

I’ve also tried using the tablet as a visualiser in the same way – by sharing the video, rather than the screen. I used a tripod and tablet holder. The tablet holder didn’t fit the iPad well without its case; however as I wanted to see the screen, the rear facing camera made sense, so I had to wedge it in a bit. Trying to get a good angle, so I could write on the paper, while still seeing the computer for any chat and talking – was a bit of a challenge! It was much easier with the tablet on the desk next to me, using the drawing package!

For a phone, though, that’s a little too small to draw on, I could see a phone (and home made stand) working well.

The whole other question is  “what’s the best app” to draw and annotate. But, I’ll leave that for another time.