How do you engage students and share information during a presentation? If you’re looking to provide resources to students in the moment, you’ll want to check out crowdbeamer. Crowdbeamer is a presentation tool for teachers that makes it easy to share your screen in real-time.
Presentation Tool for Teachers
This summer I had the chance to see crowdbeamer in action. I watched as presenter screen was broadcast to multiple devices. With this tool, the presenter has control to share their screen. This is true whether they are showing off a live demo or sharing a slide deck. Teachers can pause as they switch from a browser to a PowerPoint, to anything else they’d like to share with students.
Teachers can use crowdbeamer just about anywhere. Although certain use cases come to mind – like an auditorium, lecture hall, or traditional classrooms – there are many ways teachers can use this presentation tool. One of my favorite use cases is out in the field, while students explore the world around them. As you can see in this picture, students have the opportunity to move around while maintaining access to reference material and any information you have shared. The crowdbeamer device uses local wifi and has battery power to make it easy to be on the move.
With crowdbeamer, you can plug in and present using any VGA or HDMI hookup. Once you connect to the crowdbeamer device, it will send out your presentation to students on whatever device they are using.
Interactive Presentations for Students
Crowdbeamer lets teachers share information with students and gives students a space to take notes and capture information. They have a clear view of presentation materials on the device they have brought to the classroom. It is perfect for BYOD (bring your own device) environments where students have a different device than the classmate sitting next to them.
In this video, you can get a feel for the steps it takes to get started with crowdbeamer. Using an app on their device, students (or anyone in your audience) can access presentation materials in real time. As you can see in the animated video below, crowdbeamer is a presentation tool to use with both small groups and super-large groups. Crowdbeamer offers several solutions depending on the group size and the venue. The GO version can be extended up to 75 users and the Enterprise ranges between 100 and 200 users. For even bigger venues they create a network of crowdbeamers with an unlimited number of users.
Crowdbeamer Student Features
Students viewing a presentation with crowdbeamer can zoom into an image shared on their screen. This presentation strategy gives the opportunity to tailor the view of course materials to their needs in real-time. With this tool, students also have the option to annotate their screen. They can save their annotations and access them all later.
I love tools that can address issues teachers face in the classroom. For example, student engagement, accessibility of resources, and providing space for students to customize their learning experience. With crowdbeamer students can get up close to your demonstration, a primary source document or passage, or whatever type of material you share. They can take notes right on their screen and have access to everything they need once the class is over.
If you’re ready to start, you can head over to crowdbeamer’s website to learn more about their product or schedule a demo just like I did!
