Overview
This article will discuss the Present menu's "Whiteboard" option, available to class Instructors from the Live Classroom. Below is a screenshot that highlights the location of this option within the Present menu:
The "Whiteboard" tool lets Instructors launch a collaborative activity where participants can draw together on a shared canvas.
When you click the Whiteboard icon, a dropdown menu appears with two options:
- Class - Creates a classwide whiteboard where everyone works on the same canvas. Upon selecting this, you'll be presented with various options. Once you've made your selections and begin the activity, a "Class Whiteboard" view tab will become available to all participants. We'll go into details on the options available in the next section.
- Per Table - This creates table-level whiteboards, giving each group its own shared canvas. Upon selecting this, a "Table Whiteboard" view tab will become available to all class participants. Because these whiteboards are tied to individual tables, participants who move between tables will see the contents automatically update to reflect the whiteboard of their new table.
Class Whiteboard
Upon selecting the "Class" option from the Whiteboard dropdown, you'll be presented with the whiteboard creator pop-up screen, as exampled below:
This screen allows you to make any necessary adjustments to the whiteboard--or select from an existing one--to use with the activity.
On the very left of the screen are 2 tabs from which you can select: "Create Your Own"--selected by default--lets you start from a blank whiteboard; "Content" allows you to pick from existing Whiteboards saved to the classroom's content area. We'll describe the details of both tabs.
Create Your Own
From the Create Your Own tab, you start with a blank whiteboard. You can use the blank whiteboard as-is or make adjustments to it before starting the activity. When this tab is in focus, you'll see the following items on the page:
- Whiteboard Name - We will auto-populate this with a generic name, but if you plan to save this for future use, we recommend changing the name to something relevant.
- Whiteboard - Most of the screen is occupied by the whiteboard itself, which starts off blank and includes the standard toolbar positioned on the left. You can use this toolbar to add content before launching the activity. For instance, if you want to run a spontaneous whiteboard exercise where everyone posts a note with their pet's name, you could place your own example note on the canvas first and then start the activity so it appears for everyone right away.
- Save to Content - If you'd like to save the whiteboard to the classroom's content library, click this button. Clicking this will instantly save whatever you have on the whiteboard using the name currently assigned to it.
- Start - Click this to begin the activity. The state of the whiteboard in the creator screen is what will be used.
Content
The Content tab lets you select from Whiteboards that have already been saved to this classroom. When you open this tab, you'll see a list of those saved Whiteboards, as illustrated in the example below:
From this list, you can either select a Whiteboard directly or click its "Open as a Copy" button. Doing so takes you to a page that closely resembles the Create Your Own view, but with the selected Whiteboard already loaded. While most of the fields on this screen were covered earlier in the article, the notes below apply specifically to the Content tab:
- To return to the list of saved Whiteboards , click "Back to Content" at the top of the screen.
- Any edits you make--including changes to the Whiteboard's name--will automatically update the original saved version. If you want to work from an existing Whiteboard without altering it, use "Open as a Copy" instead.
Notes
- The whiteboard creation screen appears only when launching a class‑level whiteboard. Table‑level whiteboards don't offer any customization--once you start one, every table receives the same blank canvas with no option to apply a template or modify the canvas beforehand.