Collaborative Whiteboards

I don't know why I love collaborative whiteboards but I think the technology is cool and it's one of those things that makes me say, "How'd they do that?"

I wrote about Whiteboard Lite yesterday and my kids tried it out today and really liked it. They love seeing their drawings show up on someone else's iPad and they immediately used it to write/draw messages back and forth to each other. Oh boy.

Today I found another with what happens to have a semi-weird name, Bai Board, but has a ton more features than Whiteboard Lite. It allows you to add text, speech bubbles, highlight, snapshots, web sharing, and much more. One of the coolest features is the chat feature, which allows you to record your voice and post it to the canvas. In all honesty, Bai Board blows the doors off of Whiteboard Lite so give it a try. There's no sign up necessary and students can create a board in seconds and even password protect it.

I like to use these when my students are working collaboratively on a project or responding to a read aloud. Not only does it get them to have to work together but more importantly it helps them to create some working norms within their group, sort of a self-policing mini-classroom.

Another cool feature is that there is a Mac app that allows you to collaborate on a Mac and iPad at the same time. Even better.