# Any screen is your whiteboard. Overlaid for Teachers & Educators

Source: https://useoverlaid.app/for/teachers

> Draw over slides, PDFs, spreadsheets or a website while you teach online. No separate whiteboard app, no switching windows mid-lesson, nothing for students to install.

## What people say before Overlaid

- Everyone look at the... this bit. Here.
- Can you all see my mouse?
- Hang on, let me find the whiteboard app.

## Scenarios

### A board that cleans itself

In a real classroom you'd wipe the board between examples. Fading ink does that for you. Circle, label, explain, and the marks clear a couple of seconds later so the next example starts on a clean slide.

1. Set Fade to 2s or 5s depending on how long students need to copy.
2. E: Circle the part you're talking about.
3. T: Label it. It fades with everything else.

### Show students where to look

Thirty students on a shared screen means thirty different places they're looking. Spotlight dims everything except the area around your cursor, so their eyes follow yours.

1. ⌃⌥C: Cycle cursor effects to Spotlight.
2. Move the cursor as you explain.

### Write the working out beside the question

Maths, chemistry, grammar: the working out belongs next to the problem, not in a separate app. Highlight the given values and write each step right there on the slide.

1. H: Highlighter over what's given.
2. T: Type each step next to it.
3. ⌃⌥Z: Undo a mistake without breaking your flow.

## Suggested setup

- **Fade:** 5s. Enough time to copy a label, then the slide is clean again.
- **Cursor effect:** Spotlight. Pulls a full class's attention to one spot.
- **Stroke:** Thicker. Press ] a couple of times. Thin lines disappear on a compressed video call.
- **Toolbar:** Pinned. Easy to reach if you're not a shortcuts person.

## Questions

### Do my students need to install anything?

No. Overlaid runs on your Mac only. Students see your annotations as part of your normal screen share.

### Is there a blank whiteboard mode?

Not a dedicated one. Overlaid draws over whatever is on screen, so most teachers open a blank slide or a blank page and draw on that. If you want a proper whiteboard canvas, Presentify and DemoPro both have one.

### Will students see my drawings if I share only the slides window?

No. A single-window share only includes that window, and the drawings are a separate layer on top. Share your whole screen and they show up.