Using Your Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 to Lecture

I have not blogged in ages. oops. I started this post a while ago, back when I was teaching. Since then I have graduate (yeah me!), and have started a postdoc in a new country.

I remember being so perturbed when the first class I ever taught was in a lecture hall that did not have a chalk board. How can one teach math with no chalk?! Well, lots of ways, one being on a tablet.

I bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 for lecturing and struggled quite a bit to find all the doohickies to hook it up the the projector in the lecture hall. Yes quite a few lecture halls still do not have straight up HDMI.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and VGA set up for a lecture hall projector

The hardest part is finding the right HDMI to VGA connector. I read that one with sound is important, and the one I found does have sound. I don't use sound though. I think I tried 2 other HDMI to VGA connectors before I found this one that worked. Here is what I use:

• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tablet
• Power supply (the plug it came with) (came with the tablet)
• Micro USB to HDMI (samsung) http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/ET-H10FAUWESTA . (Amazon.ca)
• LEXMA HDMI to VGA converter (with audio). (BestBuy in store)

It is not a perfect setup, but it does work. I found that older projector/systems are less forgiving if you want to toggle back and forth between devices. Sometimes I need to run something off my laptop (720p) and when I disconnect it and connect my tablet (1080p) again I get projector errors.

Projecting Samsung Galaxy 10.1 on projector with VGA cable. 

I took the above picture ages ago! I remember it was a day or two before I started lecturing that I finally got this working. I used 'lecture note' (free app, google it) for that class. Easy to upload the notes as a pdf after the class. It worked really well. Depending on the class, dimming the board lights might be in order.

Annotating Calc PDF for lecture.