Education Centre of Australia

3.1 Overview

Share Screen - begins sharing your device’s display to the screen in the room. When this button is clicked, the Vivi app will minimize into a floating toolbar. 

Play Content - Play either a video directly from the internet, via the Vivi Box which will give high quality video playback, or play PowerPoints, Google Slides, images, audio files, and video files from your device or your Google Drive. You can continue using your device while the content plays on the room's display. 

Whiteboard - Contains a suite of features that allows you to annotate over either a whiteboard or a background image. 

Give Student Control - Shows a list of all the students that have connected to the room. From there, you can preview what is currently on the students’ devices or pass control of the room screen to them. 

Screenshot - This feature is active while sharing. Allows users to take a screenshot of whatever is currently being shared to the room screen and annotate on it if they want. 

Message Class - Send a message to everyone in the room. This message will be displayed on all connected devices in the room. 

Assessment - Allows users to run formative assessment questions with students who have connected to the room. This includes multiple choice, true/false, yes/no, and free-form. 

Polls - Allows users to run wellbeing emoji-based questions with students who have connected to the room.

Wellness - play breathing exercises and meditations from Headspace directly through the Vivi app.

 

3.2 Share Screen

3.2.1 Sharing Content

To share content from your device to the screen in your room, select Share Screen. 

• If you are on a Windows device, your screen will begin sharing immediately. 
• If you are on a MacBook you may need to engage Airplay depending on your settings. If required, instructions will be display on your device. 
• If you are on an iOS device (such as an iPad or iPhone), you will need to engage Screen Mirroring by following the instructions on the device. 
• If you are on a Chromebook or Android device, you may see a pop-up asking you to allow screen mirroring or recording. Once you have given permission, screen sharing will begin. 

Once sharing begins, Vivi will minimize to the floating toolbar (refer to section 3.3 for further information on the Floating Toolbar).

3.2.2 Stop Sharing

To stop sharing, click on the Stop button in the floating toolbar.

Alternatively, if viewing the main page, you can stop sharing by:

• Clicking on the stop button in the orange bar to stop sharing that display.
• Clicking on the Stop All button in the upper-right to stop sharing all content in the room - this is particularly useful in a Combined Room (refer to section 3.11 for further information), a Multi-Display Room (refer to section 6 for further information), or when using Split Screen (refer to section 3.9 for further information).

3.3 Floating Toolbar and Vivi Controls

When using Vivi on a laptop (such as a Windows or MacBook) device, upon sharing, Vivi will shrink to a Floating Toolbar.

From here, the following functions can be used:

• Move - selecting the 6-dot icon on the far left will allow you to move the floating toolbar around the display.
• Stop - stops sharing.
• Pause - freezes the content on the classroom display. Upon clicking, Vivi will minimize. To resume presenting, return to the Vivi app and click Resume.
• Annotate - opens Vivi’s annotation tools (refer to section 3.7 for further information).
• Timer - Accesses the Share Screen Timer. Refer to 3.12 Share Screen Timers
• Give Control - opens the section of the Vivi app where control can be passed to students (refer to section 4 for further information).
• Home - returns to the main view of the Vivi app.
• Hide - minimizes Vivi to the toolbar.
• Expand Arrow - shows more features.

On most devices, the volume controls on the device’s keyboard will not control the volume of the classroom display. The exception to this is iOS devices (such as iPads and iPhones) which will be able to use the volume buttons on the side of the device to control the classroom display volume. Please note: this feature requires app version 3.3.0 or above.

• Movie Mode - enables Movie Mode which adds a 2-second delay between the device and the classroom display. This is useful for videos that can’t be played through Play Video (refer to section 3.4 for further information). The delay allows videos to buffer and helps to overcome minor playback issues.
• Privacy Mode - prevents students from taking screenshots of the classroom display (refer to section 3.7 for further information).

The above tools can also be found in the lower bar in the Vivi app that appears when sharing.

3.4 Play Content

Vivi’s Play Content feature allows teachers to share videos, images, PDFs, PowerPoints and Google Slides to the classroom display, all while freeing up the teacher’s device.

This feature requires updates to the Vivi app and the Vivi hardware (Version 3.6.0 or newer for Play Content, and Version 3.7.0 or newer for the integration with Google Drive).

If it is not available, ensure your Vivi app is up-to-date (you can check your app version by clicking on the Settings cog in the upper-right corner of the app. The Vivi Version will be displayed in the bottom-left of the pop-up). If still not available, speak to your IT Administrator.

3.4.1 Playing a single online video

To play a single video, click on Play Content on the main Vivi page.

Paste in a link to the video in the ‘Paste video or audio links here’ section then select Play Link(s).

Vivi is able to play videos from a wide range of unprotected online sources such as YouTube and Vimeo. You will be unable, however, to play videos from certain protected sources, especially those that require you to log in (such as Netflix or Disney+) as Vivi is unable to log into these for you.

3.4.2 Controlling video playback

When a video is playing, controls will appear at the bottom of the Vivi app.

Above the control bar, hover over the green bar to access a slider. Select and drag to move forwards or backwards in the video.

The functions in the control bar from left-to-right are:

• The name of the video is shown.
• Stop - stops playback of the video.
• Back / Forward - skips forward or back when playing multiple items in a queue (see below).
• Pause - pauses the video. When selected, this changes to a play button which can be selected to resume playback.
• Privacy Mode - stops students from having the ability to screenshot the classroom display (refer to section 3.8 for further information).
• Displays time elapsed once playing and total length of the media selection.
• CC - Closed Captions - turns on closed captions (subtitles) if the video contains them.
• Volume - adjusts the volume of the video.
• Show Queue - changes the view mode to see what items are in the queue (see below).
• Mini Player - minimizes the Vivi app to show a floating version of the player (see below).

3.4.3 Playing a single local file

To play a single file that is saved on the device, click on Play Content on the main Vivi page.

Drag and drop the file in. Currently, Vivi supports locally stored videos, audio files, images, PDFs and PowerPoints.

Once the file is dragged in, it will be automatically processed. This should just take a few seconds. Once processed, each page of the file will be displayed as a separate item in a queue. If a PowerPoint is uploaded that contains embedded videos or audio files, these items will be extracted and placed as separate pages in the queue.

To begin playing, select Play From Start.

3.4.4 Queues

To play multiple content items in a row, drag and drop in multiple files, add one or more files from a Google Drive, or paste in either individual links or multiple links to online videos and select the Add to Queue button (to the right of Play Link(s).

Once a queue has been started, use the Add Content button to insert more content items.

To rearrange the order, click and drag items. When ready to begin playback, select Play From Start.

3.4.5 Playlists

Queues can be saved as Playlists to access at another time.

To save a playlist, once all files have been entered into a queue, click on Save as Playlist.

In the pop-up, insert a name then select Save Playlist.

To load a Playlist, click on its name in the left-hand side of the Vivi app. Then click Play from Start to begin playback. Alternatively, click on the ꞏꞏꞏ button next to its name and select Play Playlist to begin immediate playback. The ꞏꞏꞏ button can also be used to add to an existing queue, to rename the Playlist, or to delete the Playlist.

3.4.6 Mini Player

Note that the Mini Player is only available in desktop versions of the Vivi app. It will not be available in the web app or in iOS and Android versions.

The Mini Player is a miniature version of the Play Content playback screen that floats over your device’s display to allow for easier multi-tasking.

To access the Mini Player, once a file or queue is playing, select the Mini Player icon in the bottom right.

Once in the Mini Player, control will be available along the bottom of the app. From left to right these controls are:

• Stop - stops playback of the file.
• Back / Forward - skips forward or back between pages when playing multiple items in a queue.
• Pause - if playing a video or audio file, pauses the file playback. When selected, this changes to a play button which can be selected to resume playback.
• Volume - if playing a video or audio file, adjusts the volume of the video.

Hover over the preview of the display to access further features.
 In the top left, you can return to the regular view of the Vivi app.
In the bottom right you can activate Privacy Mode to stop students having the ability to screenshot the classroom display.
 You can also click and drag on the preview to move the Mini Player around your display.

3.5 Whiteboard

Vivi’s whiteboard tool allows teachers and students to annotate over a blank canvas or to load a background image and annotate over that.

To use, select Whiteboard from a room’s homepage.

Along the top, the tools available, from left to right, are:

If returning to the room’s homepage, annotations will remain in the whiteboard so users can go in and out as necessary.

• Toggle Full Screen - Toggles between full screen and windowed mode.
• Sharing Controls - Allows the presenter to share their whiteboard to the Vivi display, pause and resume their screen share, and stop sharing.
• On Screen Timer - If sharing, the ability to display a floating timer will be available. Refer to 3.12 for more information.

In the middle of the screen, on the left and right sides, can be found:

On the bottom left of the screen, is the whiteboard toolbar. The tools available, from left to right, are:

• Select - select, move, resize, and rotate elements on the page.
• Pen - freehand drawing tool. By selecting this, more options will appear to select the color and thickness of the line. Use the + icon to add more colors.

• Eraser - removes individual elements from the page.
• Select Background - see Select Background below for more information.
• Undo - undoes the last change made to the whiteboard.
• Redo - redoes the last Undo item.
• Clear Whiteboard - Clears the current board, not including any backgrounds inserted.
• Show All Boards - see Board Management below for more information.
• More Options- opens a submenu with additional options shown below.
  1. Copy - copies the current board to the clipboard so that it can be pasted into another app.
  2. Save to Device - saves the current board to the device.
  3. Save to Drive - saves the current board to Google Drive.
  4. Save to OneDrive - saves the board page to OneDrive.
  5. Save to OneNote - saves the board page to OneNote.
  6. Clear All Boards - clears all whiteboards.
  7. Assessment - commences an Assessment (see Section 3.10)
  8. Poll - commences a Poll (see Section 3.10)

 

3.5.1 Select Background

The Select Background feature allows teachers and students to add whiteboard backgrounds from Vivi’s whiteboard background library, allowing them to select from educational whiteboard backgrounds to enable different academic tasks, and improve note-taking.

Whiteboard users may select from a variety of backgrounds, including:

• Blank
• Add Background - select an image from the device to use as a background.
• Paper Backgrounds - including lined paper, graph paper, dots, handwriting, and staff paper.
• Graphic Organizers - including column organizers and Venn diagrams.
• Sports Fields - including NFL, AFL, baseball, hockey and tennis.

When adding a Custom Background Image, all existing annotations will be deleted.

Select either Apply to All Boards to add the selected background to every board, or Apply to Board to add the selected background to the current board only.

3.5.2 Board Management

The Show All Boards icon in the toolbar allows users to manage the boards in the whiteboard. Use the + icon to add more boards, the < and > icons to navigate through all boards, and the X to close the board management toolbar.

There is a limit of 50 boards that can be added.