Homeschooling because of coronavirus? AirPlay is your friend.
- mar
- 27
We need all the help we can get, don't we?
With the schools of the world closed thanks to coronavirus, many of us are trying our best to teach our kids at home. I'm trying to teach kids of five and seven about things that I can barely remember, let along speak about authoritatively. That, of course, is where the internet comes to the rescue. And by extension, AirPlay.
Picture the scene, if you will. Three of us are huddled around a 13-inch MacBook Pro as we try to watch a video clip. That sort of works, but when it becomes time to follow a guided exercise in an attempt to prevent us all from vegetating, watching on a small screen from a few feet away is less than ideal.
No problem, I thought. That's why we have YouTube installed on the television. Not to mention everything that's connected to it. But just like everything else I've come across during this homeschooling adventure, it wasn't that easy. We're watching on a website with a proprietary player. There's no YouTube video to stream. I'm stuck.
And that's when I remembered AirPlay. More specifically, AirPlay screen mirroring. You can see where this is going, can't you?
In as long as it took me to open System Preferences on my MacBook Pro we were watching a full-screen video on the TV. It looked surprisingly good, too. And nothing lagged even for a moment. Everyone was happy, I got a chance to remind the kids how clever I am, and we got on with our day.
And then they asked me something about space and I looked silly all over again.
AirPlay. It's great. But it can't work miracles.