I have had great success using Reflector on my Mac to mirror the screen from my iPad when I do webinars. However, after some feedback  I received from a recent webinar on switch access I decided to look into improving my setup.One of the viewers suggested that I show my interaction with the switch interface (the tapping of the buttons, etc.) along with the mirrored iPad screen. I agree that this would be helpful when showing off not only Switch Control but also VoiceOver. With VoiceOver, there are many gestures (flicks, swipes and the like) that don’t translate well during a webinar if you are only mirroring the device screen. I had a chance to try a new setup when I did a webinar on VoiceOver and Zoom this past week, and I was very pleased with the results.

I took advantage of Reflector’s ability to mirror multiple devices as follows:

  •  Device 1: iPad mini mirroring the screen to Reflector as usual.
  • Device 2: iPhone mounted on an iPevo iPhone stand ($69) and running the iPevo presenter app.

The iPevo presenter app is a free app designed for use with iPevo’s iPhone stand. It has the option to hide all controls and show a very minimal interface so that there are no distractions. Below is a photo of my setup where you can see the split screen effect I got on my computer display, which I then shared with my webinar participants using the screen sharing feature of our webinar platform.

Webinar setup: iPad mini and iPhone mounted on iPevo stand on the left, Mac showing mirrored devices on the right.

I tried a similar setup with iPevo’Ziggi HD document camera, but I found it could not keep up with the motion whenever I performed a gesture on the iPad with VoiceOver. In the end, the iPhone camera did much better in keeping up with the motion of my hands during the VoiceOver demos.

My one concern is that having the two screens up could be distracting, so we’ll see what the feedback says on that point. For now I plan to use this setup for any of my upcoming webinars that involve VoiceOver or Switch Control.

Update: iPevo suggested lowering the resolution while using the Ziggi HD camera to see if that would work better for capturing the motion. I found that a resolution of 1024X768 worked well on my 11 inch Macbook Air. I also made sure to let the camera focus on my iPad screen and then selected Focus Lock in the Presenter app on my Mac (pressing the letter M will also lock focus). I will probably use that setup when doing a Switch Control webinar where it is nice for people to see the hardware and the iPad at the same time. Thanks for the suggestion, iPevo.

Published by Luis Pérez, Ph. D.

Luis Pérez is a technical assistance specialist at CAST, but the views shared on this website are all his own. He holds a doctorate in special education and a master’s degree in instructional technology from the University of South Florida. Luis was recognized with an International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Making It Happen! Award in 2020. Other recognitions include Apple Distinguished Educator (2009) and Google Certified Innovator (2014). Luis has published three books on accessibility, mobile learning and UDL: Mobile Learning for All (Corwin Press), Dive into UDL (ISTE) and Learning on the Go (CAST Publishing). He currently serves as an Education and Learning strand advisor for the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA).

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