Thursday, September 17, 2020

Sharing Audio from 3rd Party Apps

Hey Tek-ninjas! Today I have two specific "solutions" for a problem AND a call for help. I have had a number of folks (primarily school-based SLPs/OTs/Educators) reach out to me asking how to get their AAC user's voices to come over video conference for remote tx/ed. 

I should preface this by saying this assumes you are hosting the video conference on your AAC user’s device. That also assumes it is unlocked and accessing the Internet. there are a lot of salient reasons to host the session right on the users device including the ability to model on the device, as well as using the built-in camera to assess level of engagement and positioning.

On the Zoom platform it's super easy. When you start a video make sure you check "automatically join audio" and then when you go to "share" screen be sure to check the box that says "Share computer sound". This will port over audio from ANY 3rd party application on your device ie: AAC software. 

For Microsoft Teams, this process is the same, but instead of a check box, you have a radio button in the top right of the "share" screen. 

This video shows both. 


Many of our colleagues are using Google Meet, simply because their school district has a Google account, and that's the digital eco-sphere they live in. Currently, Google Meet does not have this function. Or does it? That's the "call for help". Has anyone found a solution yet? 

As early as March, educators were asking for this function in the Google Meet help desk. A "Google Product Expert" replied: "The only method provided by google to broadcast audio from a presentation is via presenting from a Chrome Tab". 

So, if you've worked out how to do this, please post in the comments, or email me! Hopefully Google will fix this. I've seen a few technical solutions offered, but they were so complicated and frankly not realistic for families to implement. 

For now, I have chatted with a few SLPs who are hosting a student's meeting on a different device, and putting a microphone near the speakers of the AAC device - or using the "free" version of Zoom with the intention of apologizing if they get called out for it by their district.... needless to say, I'm not endorsing that option.

I will update if/when I hear more. 

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