Click HERE to watch a video tutorial.
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Real-time collaboration is fun. It allows you to connect with loved ones, students or colleagues, wherever they happen to be, using the Red Clover Reader App. We recommend Google chrome (click here to install), for the best user experience. Also, a good internet connection and a Red Clover Reader subscription (visit our subscription page if needed) are needed.
To collaborate with someone, you must first be "friends" with them on Red Clover Reader and they must be logged in at the same time. You can send a friend request to anyone with an active Red Clover account. For this, just go to the book catalog, click on “Friends” from the top menu, type the name or email address of the person and send them a friend request. From the same “Friends" menu, you can also invite someone via email, Facebook or WhatsApp to create a new Red Clover Reader account.
Note: You automatically are "friends" with anyone for whom you've set up a profile under your account. So when a parent creates a profile for their child, they do NOT need to send a friend request out to the child.
Now let’s suppose you want to read with a family member and both of you are logged in to Red Clover Reader. You can start by making a video call. From the “Friends” menu, search for their name in your Friends List. Click on the green video icon next to their profile picture to initiate a video call. The video starts once the other person accepts your call.
On Google Chrome, you can minimize the video using the “Picture-in-Picture” option. This keeps the minimized video on top of the screen and you can move it freely around the page. Right-click on the other person’s image and select “Picture-in-Picture”. If using a touchscreen device, you can tap the other person’s image with two fingers then select “Picture-in-Picture”.
Great, now you can see and hear each other. Choose a book to read together from the book catalog. Once you’ve decided on a title, click the cover to open the book details page. Then click “Read this book” under the “Details” tab.
Once the book loads, you can invite your friend to join a book session. Locate the blue strip in the right corner of the screen. Click on the icon of a person with a plus sign to access your Friends List. Find the other person in the list and click on their name. Our system will send a session invite to them. As soon as they accept it, both of you are connected in the same book. Abracadabra!
Your screen:
The other person's screen:
Your screen:
With real-time collaboration, both parties are ALWAYS on the same book page. Either of you can flip book pages. Locate direction arrows in the upper right corner of the screen.
You can draw and color on the screen. The color pad is located in the upper left corner of the black top bar. Click on it and select a color of your choice. How fun!
You can also adjust the size of the paint brush to make it thicker or thinner, depending on the application. Drawings synchronize across both sessions in real-time.
You can hide the black top bar and restore it at will.
You can clear the page, display one or two pages of the book at a time on your screen, or zoom pages in or out.
You can chat. The chat button is located on the blue collaboration strip.
You can use the collaborative whiteboard together. To do this, click on the computer screen icon on the black top bar, select a color for the board and confirm it. The whiteboard allows you to create art or solve problems together remotely.
If at any time your video gets disconnected, you can restart it by clicking on the video icon on the blue strip. Both parties have to restart the video in this case!
When done reading a book, you can return to the book catalog and select another one to read together. Click on the “Back to catalog” button located in the upper right corner of the black top bar.
Happy reading!
> Contact us via email if you're having some trouble setting things up on your own: contact@redcloverreader.com.