Every teacher and tutor needs a good whiteboard
The owner of a tutoring company asked me today what online whiteboard tools I've used and I named about half a dozen off the top of my head. They said they had never heard of any of them before, but are familiar with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex. All of them have whiteboards, yes, but they're all integrated into the platform. The ones I named were all independent, self-functioning whiteboard tools for collaboration that are not embedded into a virtual platform. It made me realize that there are a variety of amazing online tools out there that very few even know about.
Whiteboard tools are so versatile and multi-functional; many people are using them to serve their purposes, be it for team work in an organization or virtual classroom teaching. Depending on the purpose of the whiteboard, some basic needs include:
The ability to collaborate with one or more
Tools for typing, writing, drawing, or adding shapes
Different fonts and colours
Paper choices such as graph, lined, dotted, and blank
Chat or even audio function
To add an element of fun, some even have sticky notes and emojis. For more added features, some whiteboards have templates to start with or the ability to upload documents for the team or teacher/student to markup together. Finally, a good whiteboard application permits the user to download the board in some way, as an image or a PDF. The amazing thing is, many of these applications are free and may not even require that an account be opened.
NoteBookCast
NoteBookCast is a very, very basic whiteboard where teacher and students can collaborate together with text, drawings, shapes, and sticky notes. Images can be uploaded and audio notes can be recorded. No account needs to be opened and a board can simply be created for free. However, there are no templates, files cannot be uploaded and the only method of downloading the board is to take a screen capture.
Eraser
I've spoken previously of Eraser, which I hadn't realized now calls itself "The Whiteboard for Engineering Teams" and works so well in Kumospace. The board is divided into two sections: text and canvas. It works extremely well for notetaking, code editing, graphs, diagrams and charts. There are numerous templates to choose from and the board can be downloaded in multiple formats. However, there are no fun elements like sticky notes, files cannot be uploaded, and there are no chat functions.
Web Whiteboard
Web Whiteboard is powered by Miro and can be considered as Miro-lite. It is a simpler version of Miro, with all of the basic whiteboard functions, and free with no signups. There are a handful of very simple templates to choose from, but there is no upload of images or choice of paper. The board itself only lasts for 24 hours unless it is saved to a Miro account and the free version allows 3 saved boards.
Whiteboard.chat
Whiteboard.chat has the basic whiteboard functions of text, drawing, shapes and collaboration with numerous students. Sticky notes are available, as are different fonts and colours to differentiate between text from teacher and students. No sign-up is required, although boards disappear after 7 days and free accounts have a maximum of 10 boards. Audio/video conferencing is only available on certain paid plans, but there is chat on the free plan. The board can be downloaded as a PDF with educator and student versions and full PDF documents can be uploaded so educator and student can work together.
As online tutoring and teaching continue to grow in popularity and tools make the work more effective and efficient, whiteboard applications will only get more sophisticated. I will continue to explore what is available and welcome any suggestions from those who have tried any that work well for them.
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