Use your iPad as a whiteboard on Zoom (and let your student write too)

Ways to use an iPad as a whiteboard in a Zoom lesson

The setup: laptop for the call, iPad for writing

1. 1Start or join the Zoom meeting on your laptop. It handles your camera, microphone and speaker.
2. 2Keep the iPad off the call's audio. If you do join the meeting on the iPad too, disconnect its audio (More > Disconnect Audio). Zoom notes that muting isn't enough, because the iPad's speaker still plays the call back into your microphone.
3. 3Put the iPad where you write comfortably, flat on the desk or on a low stand, with Apple Pencil charged.
4. 4Open your whiteboard on the iPad using one of the three ways below.
5. 5Test once before your first lesson: write a line on the iPad and check how it looks from your student's side.

Way 1: mirror your iPad into Zoom

1. 1Make sure the iPad and laptop are on the same Wi-Fi.
2. 2In the Zoom desktop app, click Share, open the Other tab, and choose iPhone/iPad via AirPlay. On a Mac you can choose iPhone/iPad via Cable instead.
3. 3On the iPad, open Control Center, tap Screen Mirroring, and pick the Zoom option.
4. 4Open your notes app and write. Everyone sees your iPad screen.

If Share doesn't offer these options, the meeting host has desktop screen sharing turned off in their Zoom settings. Mirroring is simple and works with any app, but your student can't write back, and they see everything on your screen, including notifications.

Way 2: Zoom Whiteboard

Zoom has its own whiteboard. In the meeting, click Whiteboards, then create one or open an existing one. Open it as Collaborating so participants can edit; Presenting gives them view-only access.

• Free Zoom accounts get 3 editable whiteboards at a time, and Zoom says free boards are shared with other Zoom account holders. More boards take the Whiteboard Unlimited add-on, from $2.07 a month.
• Uploading a PDF worksheet only works in the Zoom desktop app, up to 20 MB, and an admin can turn it off.
• Free Zoom meetings end after 40 minutes, which cuts most lessons short.

Zoom Whiteboard is the better choice when your students already use Zoom, you don't want to send a second link, and three boards are enough.

Way 3: a shared board your student writes on too

Here Zoom only carries the video, and the board lives outside it, so it's still there next week. With Instaboard:

1. 1Open the board on your iPad in the Instaboard app. The ready lesson board above is a good start.
2. 2Send your student the link in the Zoom chat, or read out the 4-digit join code.
3. 3Your student opens it in any browser or the app on their laptop, tablet or phone. Viewing needs no account; to write, they sign in for free with Google, Apple or email the first time.
4. 4Teach. You write with Apple Pencil and they see each stroke live. Use the laser pointer to show where to look, or have them follow your view so they see exactly what you see.
5. 5Their turn. They write on the same page, in their own colour, and you watch their steps as they go.

• Worksheets: import a PDF and it becomes pages you both write on.
• Homework photos: your student snaps their paper work and drops it on the board, and you mark it up.
• Math tools: equation cards for typed formulas and a Desmos graphing calculator on the board.
• Stylus mode: Pencil draws and your finger scrolls, so your palm doesn't leave marks.

Way 4: skip Zoom and call on the board

If the only reason you're on Zoom is the video, you may not need it. Instaboard has a video call built into the board, so your student opens one link and gets the call and the whiteboard together. No meeting link next to a board link, no screen share, nothing to mirror.

1. 1Open the lesson board on your iPad (or laptop) and start a call from the board.
2. 2Send your student the board link or the 4-digit join code before the lesson. They join the call from the board.
3. 3Teach and write in the same place. You see each other's video while both of you write on the worksheet. Share your screen from a laptop or browser if you need to show something else.

If you're in a two-device setup, join the Instaboard call on one device only (usually the laptop, for the camera) and write on the iPad, which shows the same board live.

The same setup on Google Meet and Microsoft Teams

• Google Meet: join on your laptop and share the board link in the Meet chat. Meet no longer has Jamboard built in. Free Meet calls between two people can run up to 24 hours; calls with three or more people end at 60 minutes.
• Microsoft Teams: the same steps. Join on the laptop, keep the iPad off the call's audio, and paste the board link in the meeting chat.
• Mirroring on Meet or Teams: you can share your iPad screen from the iPad app instead, but it's still one-way.

No iPad?

• A screenless drawing tablet such as a Wacom Intuos or Huion H1060P (about $40–$70) plugs into your laptop. Tutors recommend at least 6×8 inches. You look at the laptop screen while you write on the tablet, which takes a few lessons to get used to.
• A pen laptop, like a Surface or another 2-in-1, works in the browser with its pen.
• An Android tablet with a stylus runs the Instaboard app too.

Your student doesn't need any of this. They can type, use a mouse or trackpad, or snap a photo of their paper work.

What to know before you start with Instaboard

• Your student needs a free sign-in to write. Anyone with the link can view; writing needs a free account with Google, Apple or email.
• Free covers 5 boards. Pen strokes don't count toward the 150-item limit. Each imported PDF becomes its own board. With several regular students, Pro is $5 a month billed yearly ($59.99 a year).
• No lesson recording. Use Zoom's recording if you need one.
• The eraser removes whole strokes. Undo is the quickest way to fix the last thing you wrote.
• Calls need a free sign-in for you and your student. Free calls end at 60 minutes; Pro calls have no limit.
• It isn't a Zoom app. It runs beside Zoom, in its own app or browser tab, or replaces it with its own call.

Questions