The Zoom/Flex technology works well, but naturally there are features that students and faculty ask for that the technology may not support initially. One of those requests has been to show two content feeds simultaneously – an example of this might be PowerPoint slides on one screen and a worked example on another screen. Being able to show both feeds simultaneously lowers cognitive load, and reduces that tedious switching between the two forms of content.

Zoom does not support this out of the box, but there is a relatively easy hack to make this work.

Making It Work

Here is how you can make this happen in your class:

• Start your Zoom meeting as normal via the Zoom touchscreen.
• Join the Zoom meeting from your laptop. You will want to be Co-host. This happens automatically if you scheduled the Zoom meeting with your Zoom account. Otherwise, you can make your laptop Co-host by clicking on “More” then “Manage Participants” and “Make Co-host” on the Zoom touch controls.
• Mute your microphone and speakers on your laptop to prevent audio feedback.
• Use a virtual camera, replacing your webcam feed with your desktop view (or a specific application view) on your laptop. I used mmhmm to do this, but you could use OBS Studio.
• On the Zoom touchscreen controls, press “More” then “Manage Participants” and “Spotlight for Everyone” for your laptop video feed.
• On the Zoom Room touchscreen controls, press “Whiteboard.”
• Change to night mode (blackboard) for a better classroom experience.
• The result is you can share slide content and digital whiteboard (or the document camera, or second PC) content simultaneously. Your remote Zoom participants can click on “View” then “Side-by-side: Gallery” if they want to see the classroom video camera feeds as well as the two content feeds,
• The downside is the Zoom Room will no longer see remote Zoom participants (but you can from your laptop).

I hope this easy hack allows you to teach more comfortably in your Flex courses. Good luck!