Virtual Whiteboards

Ok, so I've haven't written in a while. I've been working on my masters degree which was finally conferred to me on October 29th! I am still working at an online school, but my position has changed a bit. Now I work mostly in a virtual setting. On a daily basis I still report to a physical building and occasionally students come in for help, but for the most part it's online.

Students use an instant messaging system to connect with a subject specialist for help. I sit with my computer and monitor student progress in their classes and wait for them to ask for help.

Interacting with students in an instant message can be frustrating, especially in math, because it's hard to convey certain symbols or steps in problem solving. So, we have been trying out several different virtual whiteboards. Students and teachers can use their mouse to draw on the board, or use a text editor to copy and paste word problems and such.

We have been using Cisco's WebEx for a while at the school. It's pretty much an online meeting platform, but has a few tools that we can use. There is a way for us to share our screen - or have students share their's if need be. WebEx has a text editor and drawing tool for easy ways to write out difficult math symbols and walk through problems. When using a writing tablet with WebEx there is a bit of a delay and that can be frustrating, patience is key! WebEx also can be slow to load and asks users several questions before actually connecting them with the "meeting." We've paid big money for it, so I'll use if I have to.

Secondly, we tried a WizIQ for a while. Students were continually asked to log in using their Facebook account and that became a hassle; there seemed to be only one way to share the link to the whiteboard without any issues. WizIQ does contain a few good things, like no delay with a writing tablet and subscript/superscript for writing out math terms. I found that students also liked the fact that there were available 2D and 3D shapes that we could pull into the whiteboard and label and work with. WizIQ had a great "break out room" button that allowed for students to be placed in several different rooms to work with the teacher. This allowed for several students to be on working at the same time and not interfering with each other. The downfall was that the instant messaging did not chime or give any indication that someone had written in it and that became an issue if we were working with multiple students and couldn't keep the screen up at all times.

More recently I've been working on Scribblar.com and so far so good. It is a free site, so of course there are flaws that I'm sure would be fixed in their pay-service. They offer a grid background for the whiteboard which is very convenient when working on graphing. A teacher can create several "classrooms" and go in and out as needed. When you log out your work is saved for future reference, or until you delete it. I tend to have just one classroom that I use with students and that seems to suffice for now. They have a text editor and drawing function as well as shapes for manipulation. I think there is an equation editor as well but that's only for those who pay! When a message is typed into instant messaging there is a short little blip (not sure how else to describe it!) to alert the users of an entry. I'm going to continue working with this, alongside WebEx, until I find any issues or big flaws.

I think the more you work with these more programs the more you may find you want in one. We, as a school, cannot seem to find the perfect one to fit all our needs but we'll keep searching!