CrankWheel is a screen-sharing service available for free and is a functional alternative to the software integrated in VirBELA. Using CrankWheel, you can share a specific window, browser tab (browser plugin required), or your full screen. You will need a CrankWheel account to share your screen, but you do not need an account to view someone's shared screen. A single CrankWheel account can share to 300 participants simultaneously.

Although you will not be able to load CrankWheel into VirBELA or install the plugin into a presentation board, but you can input the public link into the URL bar of a presentation board to view a shared screen.

To Share

Launch CrankWheel from the CrankWheel website or the browser plugin.

When the CrankWheel dashboard opens, choose a portion you would like to share: Browser Tab, Program Window, or Full Screen. Selecting Full Screen will share all visible portions of your screen.

If you select Browser Tab (the browser plugin must be installed), select the browser tab you would like to share, then click the CrankWheel icon in your browser. The tab open when the CrankWheel plugin is clicked will be the one shared. 

Similarly, if you select Program Window, you will be given the option of selecting the window you would like to share.

Once a selection has been made, your CrankWheel Dashboard will change, giving you some options on how you would like to share your selection. 

In my example, you can see there are three ways to send a private invitation (only the recipient of the link can join), as well as a public link that anyone can click on. Private invitation recipients must have a CrankWheel account in order to view the screen share. If you would like to share your screen in world, copy the web link and paste it into the URL bar of the desired presentation board.

On the presenter's CrankWheel dashboard, a window will appear at the bottom:

This window allows the presenter to control who is able to view the publicly shared link. Each person viewing the public share will see a different number, this allows you to pick and choose which users can view the content. If new users arrive in the space, they can be authorized by clicking the Accept button. For a private share, new arrivals viewing the presentation board will need to be issued a new private link. This can be done by clicking the 'Add more viewers' button that appears in the CrankWheel Dashboard after starting a private share.