Is there softare to project a screen to other PCs?

May 29, 2006 5:57 AM

Is there software that will let a user (say, a teacher) broadcast the contents of his computer screen to a number of other users (say, students), so that all the screens are showing what the server's screen is showing?
posted by Jairus to computers & internet (14 comments total)

You could use something like NetMeeting to accomplish this. All the clients would call the server, and the server would share its desktop or the application you want people to see. I'm pretty sure newer versions of Windows/MSN Messenger have similar features.
posted by bwilms at 6:06 AM on May 29, 2006

UltraVNC is free and should work fine for this. I assume this is PC/Win32
posted by ed\26h at 6:14 AM on May 29, 2006

use windows media encoder, broadcast the contents of your screen and have all the students open that stream. need bandwidth and vnc might be better, but just another idea
posted by killyb at 6:25 AM on May 29, 2006

At my school we use an application called Netsupport School. It does exactly what you ask (among other things, the most useful I find is being able to monitor and control individual student machines).
Looks like they offer a 30 day free trial as well.
posted by davey_darling at 6:30 AM on May 29, 2006

My middle school used PCAnywhere for this, but any VNC client (RealVNC, TightVNC, or UltraVNC) would be free, and work just as good, if not better. You could also just abandon the "control their screens" idea and buy a digital projector, since it would be the easiest option.
posted by fvox13 at 8:33 AM on May 29, 2006

If you're all using Windows XP, Application sharing is built in to Windows Messenger. You can read an article about it here.
posted by FreezBoy at 8:55 AM on May 29, 2006

NetSupport School gets my vote. Stable, easy to use and will work across wireless if required.
posted by funboytree at 9:07 AM on May 29, 2006

We use Glance where I work. One computer hosts and other computers can view the hosts screen by going to the glance website and entering in the session key. The system works fantastic for long-distance screen sharing.
posted by fatbobsmith at 9:57 AM on May 29, 2006

VNC will work great, with control turned off, multiple sessions turned on.

I use UltraVNC (same as ed\26h), but I've also been pleased with Tight VNC. The BEST part is that it's completely cross-platform compatible, and completely free. You can set up shortcuts on the desktop to automatically connect to a computer, via the computer name or IP address.

Added Bonus: the viewer doesn't actually have to be installed on a machine, the vncviewer.exe file runs self-contained from wherever it happens to be...
posted by hatsix at 1:57 PM on May 29, 2006

You might be interested in something free and interactive like Classroom Presenter or, for entirely online classes, Macromedia Breeze.
posted by Gable Oak at 8:02 AM on May 30, 2006

At my school we use an application called Netsupport School. It does exactly what you ask (among other things, the most useful I find is being able to monitor and control individual student machines).

This is perfect, thanks!

(VNC would rely on the students to control if/when they see the instructor machine. I want it to be entirely under instructor control.)
posted by Jairus at 1:35 PM on May 30, 2006

(VNC would rely on the students to control if/when they see the instructor machine. I want it to be entirely under instructor control.)

The "disable remote input" option on the intructor's machine. But either way.
posted by ed\26h at 3:11 AM on May 31, 2006

The "disable remote input" option on the intructor's machine. But either way.

You misunderstand. I want the instructor to choose if and when the students see the instructor's screen. I don't want the students to initiate the connection.
posted by Jairus at 4:33 AM on May 31, 2006

Following up:
Jairus: You can open listening connections, basically, the viewer sits on the student's desk, and when you open up VNC, you push your desktop to them (its meant to get around firewalls, but works for this as well)
posted by hatsix at 4:09 PM on June 7, 2006