A Better eTabulaRasa

January 20, 2010 11:36 AM

What's the best whiteboard software? Free would be nice, but not essential.

Several weeks ago I posted this question about assembling some classroom technology to work with Saba Centra. I have a kit in place, and our standards and practices are starting to come together nicely. But Centra's built in whiteboard feature is simply terrible.

We can easily switch to different whiteboard software through application sharing. As a temporary measure, we're using MS Journal, which isn't bad. But I'm wondering about better alternatives, both in native Windows software and in online applications (which presumably would support collaboration with our distance learners).

I found this old thread from nearly three years ago, which is specifically about online whiteboards and quite out of date. I'd be grateful for some updated opinions, preferably based on real world usage.

Thanks!

posted by j-dawg to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

ActivInspire is pretty popular at our school, given we get the professional version included with the whiteboard hardware (electronic pen + projector). They do however give the personal edition away for free which has most of the features. When you download, you get a 60 day trial of the pro version that auto-downgrades to the free version if you don't want to pay for a licence.

And yes, it's pretty technophobe teacher proof; it's used in a full-class environment with the teacher using the flipchart function to move between slides, annotate with the whiteboard pen etc, so a bit of a different setup than yours, but it should work.
posted by ArkhanJG at 3:01 PM on January 20, 2010