Tools in the online classroom
Mute and camera, reactions and raised hands, polls, captions and screen sharing in an online lesson or staff meeting.
Updated 18 October 2026
Why this exists
In an online lesson, fiddling with buttons takes time away from teaching. The control bar keeps the microphone, camera, reactions, polls and captions in one place, with keyboard shortcuts. Tutors can run the room, and students can take part without typing messages.
The bar at the bottom of the screen has everything you need during a lesson.
Microphone and camera
- Mute / Unmute and Camera off / Camera on. A button is red while it is off.
- The small arrow beside each one picks a different microphone, speaker or camera.
- Shortcuts: Ctrl+Shift+M (Cmd on a Mac) for the microphone, Ctrl+Shift+O for the camera.
- If you talk while muted you get a "You're muted" reminder.
Reactions and hands
React sends one of five reactions over your tile. Raise hand puts your hand up until you lower it. As the tutor you can lower anyone's hand, and hands are listed in the order they went up. Reactions carry no words, so nothing a child sends can contain a message.
Polls
- Choose Ask a poll.
- Pick a ready-made question or type your own with 2 to 5 answers.
- Students tap an answer and everyone sees the counts live.
Nobody, you included, is shown who picked what. Nothing is saved after the lesson.
Captions
Turn captions on shows the words spoken, labelled with who said them. Each person turns their own captions on or off. They need your centre's ElevenLabs connection.
Muting someone else
As the tutor you can mute a student or parent, or stop their screen share.
Screen sharing
Share screen shows only on a browser that can share (not on an iPad). The tutor can always share; a parent can when your centre lets parents take part.
Good to know
- A meeting's Chat works live. Keeping chat and files after a call may not be switched on for your centre yet.