How do I keep students from seeing what's on a shared screen?

While using breakout rooms, sometimes you'll want to keep content private that's shared inside the rooms. Read on to understand how.

Shared screens don't always have to be public. With InSpace, you can share different types of content inside each breakout room you open. This can help you differentiate breakout room work for groups, facilitate competitions, and host conferences about student work and grades. 

It's important to preserve privacy and confidentiality during these conversations. With InSpace, students in other breakout rooms can't see the content being shared in a room they're not currently occupying. 

However, there are two levels of privacy. Unlocked breakout rooms allow anyone to join at any time, and shared content is merely 'shielded' from viewing by people outside the room. 

Locked breakout rooms may be joined by approval only (students must 'knock' to gain access) and shared content is not visible until they are approved to join the room. 

In this first image, a screen capture shows two breakout rooms. In the room on the left, one student is alone in a breakout room. In the room on the right, an instructor and a student are in an unlocked breakout room. The instructor is sharing their screen. The screenshot is taken from the instructor's point of view, and shows that inside the room, the student and instructor can see the content on screen: 

In this second screen capture, we're looking at the same InSpace room, but from the perspective of the student in room 1. He can see the Office and can see that the student and instructor are inside the office. He can also see that something is being shared. However, he can't see exactly what is being shared, nor can he read it. However, he could move his circle to join the room at any time because the room is unlocked: 

In this third screen capture, we return to the point of view of the instructor and student in the Office - Room 2. Now the instructor has locked the room. We can see that not much has changed from their point of view, except that the Lock icon has been activated: 

However, the view from Room 1 has changed significantly. The student in Room 1 now sees a locked room, and his view of the student and instructor is obscured. He cannot see what's being shared, and to enter the room, he must knock to gain permission to join. Not only can he not see what's being shared, he also cannot join and accidentally gain access to what is shared.