Something I use a lot. I should explain my requirements - I often answer students’ questions on mathematics on our school VLE. Now writing mathematics can be a pain (and yes I know about LaTex), all I want to do is to be able to communicate quickly. An online whiteboard which can be saved is perfect – I just post the link to our student forums, these have been very well received. Note that a graphics tablet is essential.
Now I am wondering which is best for my use….
An interesting tool – screenr seems to do exactly what I want, it is very easy to use and plays back as I want it to – send straight to your chosen application or get the url (or both). screenr test 2. The screencast can be published easily to YouTube. Update: You can now sign in to screenr in a variety of ways (formerly just Twitter). For a training video on using Screenr – see this by Russell Stannard. (From his Teacher Training videos site).
Screencast-o-matic – now here is an interesting tool – very easy to use to capture the screen. I tried capturing myself using the interactive whiteboard software. Simultaneous Equations example here!
twiddla – good in that we can all use but files cannot be saved – good for collaboration.
Scriblink – this seems to work well, files can be saved, an email (which takes rather too long to arrive) provides the link.
Scribblar – also works very well and I like the ability to save different rooms, also the facility to lock and unlock rooms. Pages can be saved. Any number of users can be invited. I find it easy to keep a steady hand with Scribblar compared to some of the other tools – the response is quick – no delay between writing and the image appearing. Scribblar is excellent for collaboration as it includes a chat function. It is also possible to upload images. I have always had very helpful responses to any queries.
Yudu – perhaps for a different approach – publish a little book! Complete the square example
Other possibilities include Board 800 and Dabbleboard.
Update – August 2011 – another easy way to have a quick scribble - Doodle.ly see quadratic example. Select Doodle Now, doodle, then publish; I used my Twitter account, other options are available including Facebook.
Update – October 2011 - AWW which provides a very easy way to easily share a whiteboard sketch – no sign up or installation required – just write away then share!
Hi Colleen. Great website – I look forward to having a proper look around.
Have you come across Vyew.com? It’s an online whiteboard & meeting / collaboration site with a free subscription option. I’ve used it for online lessons (1-2-1 and group) and even to broadcast an actual lesson from within school when a couple of A level students were off sick but wanted to take part from home! You can set up various rooms and each room is persistent between sessions, which means we have also used it as an online notice board where students can leave messages or questions for the rest of the class outside of hours. Interested to know what you and others think…
This looks interesting Andy – I’ll certainly check this out, thank you. Scribblar also has the facility to set up different rooms.
One possibility would be to use JING for your screen capture, and you can audio narrate as you go. The vids can be up to 5 minutes, and depending upon whether you are using the free or paid subscription, you can save the video in either .swf or .mp4 formats. *I think the .swf files are visually crisper.
http://www.techsmith.com/Jing/?gclid=CL2qpt6b_KoCFQ4q7AodMl9g5w
You could use a graphics tablet with any program, probably even Paint, for actually doing the math on screen.
I agree Jing is excellent.
You are quite right in that the graphics tablet works well with all these tools / programs – Paint included.
It’s good to have a variety of tools at our disposal!
another great app to use… if you have iPads is Showme
http://www.showme.com/ Teachers (or students) can make whiteboard presentations and post them online. This could also be used as an absentee notes or presentation page. I am not sure if you can upload formats or just create them. If you can upload into show me, that would make notebook, scriblink, and other whiteboard tools inter-compatible.
Thank you Mitchell – this looks good. we should add it’s a free app.
Check out twiddla.com
Thank you Michael – I see importantly that Twiddla is free for Teachers and Students. This looks well worth investigating.
(http://www.twiddla.com/Pricing.aspx – see note at the end)
Thanks for writing this, even though it has been a long while, it has been a great help
I’m glad it’s helpful Dexter. This post has remained consistently one of the most popular, it seems to be a subject of great interest.
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Also check out http://www.groupboard.com for a reliable online whiteboard
David I like the free groupboard (no regististration required) option. I successfully embedded one on a Wiki page. That could be useful for communicating with students.
Hi Colleen! Thanks for mentioning this post of yours in a comment on my April post about Online Interactive Whiteboards. You cite some good resources here. I’ve really got to go back and update my post soon – this is a topic there’s a lot of interest in, and there’s new tools coming along steadily. Thanks again!
Thanks for the response Kelly.
I agree there is a lot of interest in this topic – let’s keep investigating!