Collaboration

Share across the room,
not across the internet.

Push a photo from a phone to the desktop over Wi-Fi. Connect two machines directly. Share a screen, talk it through, cast to the classroom TV. None of it needs a cloud account, and none of it stops working when the school connection does.

What is included

Everything a class actually needs to move work between devices, built into the studio.

Send files from a phone over Wi-Fi

A built-in local server lets a phone push photos and documents straight into the desktop app on the same network. No cable, no cloud, no messaging app in the middle.

Peer-to-peer rooms

Create or join a room and connect directly between machines, with NAT traversal handled for you. Work is exchanged device to device rather than through a server.

Screen sharing

Share a screen from inside the studio for a walkthrough or a critique, without moving the class to a separate meeting tool.

Audio collaboration

Talk while you work on the same project. Useful for a lab pair on two machines and for remote help on a piece of coursework.

Chat scoped to a group

Messaging attached to a class group rather than a general-purpose chat app, so project conversation stays with the project.

Cast to a TV

Discover devices on the network and stream to a classroom TV or display, which removes the cable hunt at the start of a lesson.

Class group workspaces

Groups carry their roster across assignments, exams and shared projects, so a class is set up once rather than per activity.

Portable project files

Whole projects export as a single file with their assets, so work moves between the lab and home on a USB stick if that is easier.

Why local transfer beats a cloud drive at school

The standard way a student moves a photograph of their homework onto a computer is to email it to themselves, or put it in a cloud drive, or send it over a messaging app. Every one of those routes the file through a third party, and at least one of them is usually blocked by the school filter.

A local transfer server solves it in the obvious way: the phone and the laptop are already on the same network, so the file goes directly. It is faster, it works when the internet is down, and the image of a child’s worksheet does not end up in a consumer messaging service.

Where this shows up in real use

  • Photographing a stack of answer scripts and sending them to the teacher’s machine for offline grading.
  • Capturing pages of a physical textbook into the AI-Memory module to study from.
  • Handing a finished project to a partner on the next machine without uploading it anywhere.
  • Putting a student’s work on the classroom display without hunting for an adapter.

Frequently asked questions

Can students share work without an internet connection?+

Yes. Grout includes a local Wi-Fi transfer server and peer-to-peer rooms, so files and projects move between devices on the same network without touching the internet. Projects also export as a single portable file.

How do you get a photo from a phone into the app?+

Start the Wi-Fi transfer server on the desktop and send from the phone over the local network. This is how photographed notes and scanned answer sheets get in without a cable or a cloud upload.

Does screen sharing need a separate meeting app?+

No. Screen sharing and audio are built into the studio, so a walkthrough happens where the work already is rather than in a second application.

Is peer-to-peer sharing safe on a school network?+

Connections are direct between the participating devices rather than routed through a third-party server, which means the work is not being copied to an intermediary. On a managed network your IT team controls which devices can see each other, as with any local service.

Can I cast to a classroom TV?+

Yes. Grout can discover devices on the network and stream to a display, which is normally quicker than finding the right adapter.

Move work between devices without a cloud account

Free download for Windows and macOS. Wi-Fi transfer, rooms, screen share and casting included.

Download Grout free