If you are like me, you may find it very challenging when sharing your screen on Zoom to follow the chat or monitor when students raise their hands. Luckily, I have found a super easy workaround that lets you share your slides (or other windows) while also being able to view the chatbox, participant list and even your slide notes!
When you are ready, click the Share button at the bottom of Zoom. Click the Advanced tab at the top of the Share screen, and then click Portion of Screen. Then click Share.
A green box will appear on your screen. Anything visible in this box is what will be shown to meeting participants; anything not included in this box will not be visible to participants. You can resize the box by click and dragging and corner. You can move the box around on your screen by clicking and dragging anywhere on the top border.
In the image below, you can see a screenshot of my Zoom screen while I was giving a workshop using the Share portion of Screen. I could see the slides panel, notes and both the Participant and Chat boxes while participants only saw the slides.
Note: Just a note that if students are watching on large screens, the quality of our screen share may be slightly decreased depending on how small the portion of your screen you are sharing, but this does not usually compromise readability.
Overall, this is a good way to set up a kind of Zoom “dashboard” for online classes so that everything you need to see is within your view at all times.

Alicia Cundell
Teaching Consultant
Alicia works with faculty to develop their teaching through consultations, teaching observations and workshops. As a representative of the CTL, she also sits on a number of committees and liaises with various units to further the CTL’s mission of supporting and sustaining excellence, inclusion, and opportunity for the entire academic community
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