Online Whiteboard Tools: A Complete Guide for Teachers

An online whiteboard gives you four kinds of tools: drawing tools (pens, brushes, highlighters), building tools (shapes, lines, text, sticky notes), pointing tools (laser and coloured pointers) and class tools (files, chat, recording, invitations). In Educastic they sit on the left toolbar, the top bar and the right-hand panel.

A new board can feel crowded the first time you open it. The quickest way to learn it is by job: what you draw with, what you build with, what you point with and what runs the class. This guide takes each area in that order, with one short paragraph per tool group and a link to the full article when there is one.

How is the Educastic whiteboard laid out?

The Educastic whiteboard has five areas, and each one holds one kind of control.

Hover over any icon to see its name. The tooltips use the same labels as this guide.

Which drawing tools are on the left toolbar?

Educastic's left toolbar groups its drawing tools into four flyouts: Pens, Brushes, Markers and Pencils & Crayons. Pens holds the Pen, Fountain Pen, Dip Pen, Calligraphy Pen, Brush Pen, Ballpoint, Fineliner, Gel Pen and Neon Pen. Brushes holds the Paint Brush, Feather Brush, Feather Ink, Watercolor, Airbrush, Ink Brush and Spray Brush. Markers holds the Highlighter and the Marker, and Pencils & Crayons holds the Crayon, Graphite Pencil, Charcoal and Colored Pencil.

When you pick one, its settings appear in the top bar: colour, Size, Opacity, Stabilizer and Reset. The full walkthrough is in pen and brush settings on the online whiteboard.

How do you add shapes, lines and text?

Use the Shapes Tools, Arrow Tools and Text Tools flyouts on the left toolbar.

• Shapes Tools: Triangle, Rectangle, Circle, Pentagon, Hexagon and Octagon, with an outline colour, a fill colour and a solid, dashed or dotted outline.
• Arrow Tools: Arrow, Double Arrow and Line, each solid, dashed or dotted.
• Text Tools: Textbox, Sticky Note and Cloud (a speech-bubble shape). A selected text box also has a Speech-to-Text microphone button that types what you say, in English; see speech to text on the online whiteboard.
• Fill Color: fills a shape, with "No fill" to make it hollow again.
• Select moves, resizes and restyles what is on the board, and Other Tools holds Cut, Copy and Paste.

The Eraser removes ink without cutting into an uploaded page. Turn on "Remove Object on Erase" in Educast Setting if you prefer it to delete whole objects, and use Clear Canvas at the bottom of the toolbar to wipe the board. More in shapes, text and sticky notes on the whiteboard.

How do you point at something without drawing on it?

Point without drawing by using Educastic's Laser or one of the Pointer Tools. The laser leaves a fading trail that every participant sees and that never stays on the board. Pointer Tools swaps your cursor for a yellow, pink or green dot in three sizes, a blinking dot, an arrow head or a circle.

In the top bar, the teacher's switch with the arrow icon is Collaborator cursors: when it is on, everyone in the session sees the teacher's cursor move over the board. See laser pointer and live cursors.

What math tools does the whiteboard have?

Educastic has four math tools: Formula, Graph, Math Paper and a Calculator.

1. Formula Tool: type an equation and place it on the board, instead of drawing it by hand.
2. Graph: a Desmos graphing calculator; apply the graph to put it on the board.
3. Math Paper: Dots, Graph, Coordinate plane, Isometric and Ruled lines backgrounds, plus Blank to remove them. The coordinate plane has an Axis labels toggle.
4. Calculator: a scientific calculator, opened from the right-hand panel.

The teacher's other top-bar switch is Snap to grid: shape and line endpoints jump to the nearest grid intersection, while freehand strokes are never snapped. Details in math tools on the online whiteboard.

What is in the top bar?

The top bar holds the controls that run the lesson rather than draw on it.

• Undo (Ctrl + Z) and Redo (Ctrl + Shift + Z), then the session timer.
• Load File to Whiteboard: My Library, Upload File, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Play Video and Media Share. See importing files to the whiteboard and playing videos in class.
• Save Whiteboard Tab: Save as Image, Save as PDF, Attach To Inbox / Outbox, Attach To Notebook and, for the teacher, Attach To Report. See saving the whiteboard.
• Publish Questions (teacher only) opens the in-class test; see live quizzes in class.
• Assign Tab and Waiting Room (teacher only), then Record and Invite.

What is on the right-hand panel?

The right-hand panel opens the class panels: Educast Audio/Video (webcam), the Chatroom, Attendees & Privileges, Resource Thumbnails, Educast Setting, the Notebook, the Calculator and Keyboard Shortcuts. Attendees & Privileges is where the teacher gives each student whiteboard tools access, tab access and file loading access.

Read chat and file sharing in class and the notebook and sketch pad for those two panels.

How do you move around a large board?

Move around with tabs, the minimap and zoom. Home is the first board tab and + adds another (teacher only), so one lesson can have a tab per activity. The minimap shows the whole board, the zoom buttons sit at the bottom right, and the board settings button beside them switches the mouse wheel between scrolling and zooming. Pan (Move Resources) drags the view, and Full Screen gives the board the whole screen. See minimap, zoom and navigation, tabs, shortcuts and undo and images on the whiteboard for the Add Image to canvas button and the Background colour button.

How do you choose which tools students see?

Choose the tools in your dashboard's Session Tools page, where each tool and group has a switch, then save them as your default. A good habit is to switch off what a class does not need: young learners rarely need nine pens.

Students use the tools only when you give them access. Without it, a student's toolbar is locked and they watch the board; with it, they draw with the same tools and settings bar you do.

Frequently asked questions

Can students use the whiteboard tools? Yes, when the teacher gives them access. In Educastic the teacher grants or removes whiteboard access per student from Attendees & Privileges.

Can I hide tools I do not use? Yes. Switch them off on the Session Tools page in your dashboard and they no longer appear on the toolbar.

Is there a highlighter? Yes. The Highlighter is in the Markers group, and it keeps the text underneath readable.

Does the whiteboard work with a drawing tablet? Yes. Most of Educastic's pens and brushes respond to pen pressure, and a Pressure control appears once you draw with a pressure-sensitive pen.

Do the tools cost extra? No. Educastic includes all of its teaching features in the free version.

Try every tool on a blank board

Open the Educastic online whiteboard, go through the left toolbar one group at a time and switch off what your class will not need.

Open the whiteboard free