Tablets in Learning and Teaching: mirroring your Surface Pro tablet

If you’re lucky enough to have a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet (expensive but, dare I say it, cooler than an iPad) , you may be interested to know that there is a way of ‘mirroring’ the tablet’s screen on a bigger HD display, such as a teaching room projector. This is despite the fact that the Surface Pro lacks the ‘Airplay’ functionality of iPads, or the emerging ‘Miracast’ wireless display technology that is starting to be adopted on Android devices.

US company Actiontec sell a reasonably priced kit comprising a USB dongle transmitter and a receiver and, although we haven’t tried it, reviews seem to suggest that it works very well with the Surface Pro. See for instance Tom Grissom’s review which includes a video demonstration. (Incidentally, Tom’s blog includes lots of other useful suggestions on using the Surface Pro for teaching.)

I know of at least one academic colleague with a Surface Pro so we may well get to try this out soon, in which case I’ll post an update.