New features of whiteboard.chat
Hello Dear Reader,
Thanks to a lot of our hero teachers, we get feedback for improvement all the time. Here are some recent features. We welcome feedback too. This board is inspired by teachers so please reach out anytime to us — feedback@whiteboard.chat
We do almost a daily change so please follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to learn more.
Admin Features
Avatar enhancements
Know when the students leave the board. After 3 minutes of inactivity — if the student walks away or closes the browser. Their Avatar will turn Grey. You can look at the image below for an example.
CoTeachers
You can create Co Teachers who have access to the grid view and the instructor boards and chat. The grid view allows the teachers to look over each Student’s shoulder at the same time and see them doing live or async work.
Click the Avatar button and then click make teacher Icon
All the teachers have a green icon. You can click this again to remove the co-teacher.
Ability to lock boards while teaching
While teaching you have the ability to lock the board so the students are not distracted or start before you are done explaining. Click the Avatar button and then Lock Class. This can be used for assessment too. Since all the boards are auto saved, the teachers can lock the boards and then assess them later. The students can still see their boards by clicking the link but they cannot change anything.
The students will see this image on their screen and cannot draw until the class is unlocked by the teacher clicking the lock icon.
Manage Boards Show participants
When you go to manage boards to see your exiting boards, you can see all of the participants on that board. So you can clearly the students who were on those boards. The expiry of the boards is set to 3 days but you can click the 3 dots to extend it to 2 weeks.
The image below is the list view. You can get to the list view by clicking the top right list view icon after you are in the manage boards link next to the search.
Class Timers
You can create timers for the class by clicking the clock icon on the top. A dialog will open asking for the time in minutes, please enter only the number, like 5 and it will start the timer
All of the students will see this on their screen.
Download boards
You can download the work of the whole class or a single board with all of the pages in a PDF file. If you download the whole class, it will have the names of participants and the date/time and page number on each page of the PDF.
This can be used for assessment as well.
One to many Chat
We added a unique chat function. It allows the teacher to create a chat window for the class. When the teacher types something in the class chat it will go to all the students, but when the students reply, it just comes to the teacher.
In a group board setting or when the teacher is in the student boards they will be able to chat with each other. The students can chat with each other but the Teacher will get a copy of the chat even when they are not part of the group board.
Tools
Palettes
We have a Math and a Music Palette (more fun ones coming). You can get to it by clicking the palettes icon on the top right off the screen. It will open a drawer. You can then pick the objects and they will be dropped on the main whiteboad.
User Functions
Hotkeys
We added some hotkeys to help teachers and students change the brush size and paste images or files directly. (Cmd is for MACs, Ctrl for others). You can do:
- Cmd/Ctrl — Z, Cmd/Ctrl-V — Undo and Redo
- Cmd/Ctrl — b and Cmd/Ctrl/Shift-b: Decrease and Increase the radius of the brush.
- ESC — The escape key will take you back to the brush tool anytime you are on the board
Highlighter and Opacity function
A new way to make the stroke opaque so you can draw over things. You can click the drop to directly make it 40% or use the slider to do that. It is at the bottom right of the screen
Rename Boards and Student boards
You and the students can easily change the name of their boards by clicking the top of the title bar, next to where it says Student or Instructor board.
Cut and Paste Text and Images
You can cut and paste text and image files directly into the whiteboard using the paste shortcut — Cmd Or Control V.
Ability to add objects
Click the tools icon to select objects to draw on the whiteboard directly. Ellipses, Rectangles or Circles.
Raise hands and ask for Assistance
The students can ask for assistance by clicking the hand icon on their screen
When the student raises the hand, the teacher and co-teacher get a notification. They can directly go to the students board by clicking their name on this window.
Lasso Select objects
If you want to select multiple objects you can use the lasso tool and draw around them
Then you can delete the objects, move, resize etc.
Locking Objects
You can lock the objects to prevent accidental deletion. Students cannot delete objects drawn by the teacher anytime but after locking even the author cannot delete them with the eraser or clearing the board
Cloning Objects
You can Clone objects to make copies of them, you can select the objects by double clicking or using the lasso tool and then click clone. The cloned object can be dropped anywhere
You can look at some of the older blogs for more features:
