Letting students share their screens during the class comes with additional risk of disruptions and potential to derail the whole lesson. Our new in-app Moderated Sessions can change that.
With Moderated Sessions, you stay in full control of the Airtame display throughout the class: you decide who can see the pairing code, who joins the queue, and who gets to present. You can open up screen sharing to students for more interactive and engaging lesson, while having the peace of mind.
This guide walks you through setting up and running a Moderated Session from start to finish, including what your students will see on their end.
Moderator mode
To run a secure screen sharing session during the lesson, the teachers should do the following:
STEP 1 - Take control of the screen
Power on the Airtame device and be the first to connect to the screen with the Airtame web app or a mobile app. From the connection menu, select “Start moderated session”. This immediately puts you in control of the screen — no other device can connect or share without your permission.
This can be done in the beginning of a school day, before the class or whenever necessary during the lesson.
Note: For additional security, if the classroom setup allows, a pairing code can be hidden from the Airtame screen by adjusting the Appearance settings. It is useful, if the teacher's device has the required screen available in the Quick connect section. Read more about Quick connect here
STEP 2 - Show or hide the paring code
Once you have started a moderated session, you control whether students can see the pairing code on the screen:
- “Start moderated session” — the pairing code is visible; students can enter it to join the waiting room.
- “Stop moderated session” — the pairing code is hidden; no new students can join.
You can toggle between these two states as many times as needed during the lesson.
Note: Stopping the moderated session only hides the pairing code from the screen. The teacher does not lose control of the screen.
STEP 3 - Manage the waiting room
When the moderated session is open and the pairing code is visible, students can join the waiting room. You will see their names listed in the session panel on your device.
From the waiting room, you can:
- Ask to share — invite a specific student to present their screen
- Remove — remove a student from the waiting room
Currently, the waiting room can host up to 5 presenters.
Once you invite a student to share, they will receive a prompt on their device and can begin streaming to the Airtame screen. As the moderator, you can stop a student’s presentation at any time by:
- Clicking Stop sharing
- Clicking Ask to share for another student (this ends the current share automatically)
- Clicking Share your screen to take over
- Clicking Stop moderated session
All of these actions immediately end the ongoing screen share.
Note: Stopping the moderated session also clears the waiting room entirely and prevents anyone
else from joining. Use this when you want to fully lock the screen between activities.
STEP 4 - Disconnect from the screen
You can open and stop the moderated session as many times as needed without losing control of the screen. To fully release the screen and return it to the idle state, click the Disconnect button.
Stopping the moderated session alone will not release the screen — you must disconnect explicitly.
Note: If you are sharing your screen in standard mode (with the moderated session stopped) and you then stop screen sharing, the screen will return to idle as normal. To start a new moderated session, you will need to reconnect to the screen first.
What students see (Presenter flow)
When the moderated session is open, the students will see the pairing code on the screen, that they can use to connect to the waiting room.
Note: Using the pairing code for the moderated session will not save the device to the Quick connect device list of the students - the pairing code only allows access to a particular waiting room, so Quick connect feature can be safely used on the classroom devices.
When a student connects to a screen with an active moderated session, they are prompted to enter a name. This can be their own name, their group, or the topic they are presenting - whatever works best for your class.
After entering their name, the student sees a waiting screen confirming they have joined the queue. They cannot share until you explicitly invite them.
Note: Student names are self-reported. Airtame does not verify them. If a student enters an unhelpful or inappropriate name, you can remove them from the waiting room and ask them to rejoin.
Once you invite a student to share, they receive a prompt on their device and can begin sharing their screen immediately.