Looking for online whiteboard tools for teaching or remote learning? Maybe you want to make your live streams more engaging? In this article, we're going to take a look at online whiteboard tools that you can incorporate when live streaming or making videos.

Apart from helping you create a direct (and extended) interactive experience for your viewers, a whiteboard tool also assists in retaining your audience better.

The global interactive whiteboard market was worth $1.9 billion in 2019, and it has been growing ever since because of the parallel rise of live streaming, online courses, traditional education moving online, and the gamification of digital classrooms.

If you are a teacher, educator, coach, trainer, or even an employee looking for tools to make digital experiences seamless and easy, a virtual whiteboard should be on your list.

What is an Online Whiteboard Tool?

An online whiteboard tool is simply the replacement for a real-life whiteboard. You can draw on the surface using your mouse or hands, as opposed to erasable markers.

So, whatever we do using a physical whiteboard (teaching, explaining thoughts, jotting points, presenting ideas, etc.), can be done using a virtual whiteboard.

Essentially it is a white screen online that lets you display presentations and explain your ideas. An online whiteboard has emerged as a fantastic tool for people who are into remote learning, coaching, and even live streaming.

Why do you need an online whiteboard tool?

Whether it's app-based or browser-based, an online whiteboard facilitates visual collaboration in real-time, and thus, it is crucial for almost every digital creator or customer out there.

Some of the use cases for an online whiteboard tool are:

  • Online education
  • Online coaching/training
  • Collaborative virtual meetings
  • Live streaming

Curious as to what some of the best online whiteboard tools for teaching are? Take a look at the list mentioned below and move towards delivering engaging and transformative online experiences:

12 Online Whiteboard Tools for Teaching

Here's a list of the top 12 interactive whiteboard tools that make virtual idea sharing and collaboration effortless:

1. Whiteboard.fi

Whiteboard.fi took top honors on this list for various reasons. First, it's a Kahoot company – so you can expect quality results. Secondly, it allows you to make engaging and interactive whiteboards as simple as sending an email.

Besides letting you create a whiteboard for your class (or live stream) in a few simple steps, it also makes others join your digital classroom or session easy. Just share the link, give your viewers or students a room access code, or ask them to scan a QR code using their mobile device to join.

After joining, each of your viewers will get their whiteboards which you can view in real-time. Meanwhile, students only get to see your whiteboard exclusively.

You can use this tool for formative assessments, tests, live feedback, or interact visually with your audience. Its free plan offers temporary rooms without registration. But you can upgrade to enjoy features like uploading PDFs, inviting co-teachers, and assigning, receiving, and reviewing submissions.

2. Drawp for School

Drawp for School could very well be your whiteboard tool of choice if you're after something a bit more comprehensive.

It lets you be creative, boost engagement levels, and collaborate with ease for your live streams or online classes. Combined with several more apps in the Drawp Marketplace, Drawp for School is a complete assignment and class management app.

If you want to move beyond simple forms for submitting assignments, Drawp for School is the one to go for. Teachers and students can manage assignments in a paperless environment.

This intuitive and easy-to-use tool is available for iOS and Android devices.

You can opt for a free 30-day trial or contact the Drawp for School's sales team for pricing.

3. Miro

Miro is a full-featured online collaborative whiteboard and visualization platform to rev up meetings, workflows, research, strategy, training, education, and more. Also capable of ideation, brainstorming, and online workshops, Miro is perfect for educators and trainers.

Loaded with pre-built templates, this flexible app quickly adapts to your use case. So whether you want to bring in some interactivity into your live streams or videos or share concepts and workflows, Miro makes it possible for you.

Want to power up further? You can even integrate Miro with apps like Slack and Trello and streamline your work.

The free plan offers three editable boards, premade templates, core integrations, and basic attention management.

4. Educreations

Would you like to make your online teaching broadcasts engaging, dynamic and even make these available for replay later? Educreations allows you to explain concepts online (through videos or live streams), help your community or audiences master subjects at their own pace, or even replay student work.

This unique whiteboard and screencasting tool can also annotate, animate, and narrate nearly any type of content as you teach, conduct live streams, shoot videos, or create online learning sessions.

For hassle-free idea creation, this tool also lets you record your voice and iPad® screen. So, creating easily accessible, dynamic video lessons is a cinch with this one.

With the free plan, you can record & share lessons, get access to basic whiteboard tools, and create & join classes.

5. Explain Everything

Explain Everything's specific focus on being one of the best online whiteboard tools is evident through its name, features, and simple interface. Besides enabling hybrid learning, it makes whiteboard instructional video creation easy. All you need to do is press record and share your knowledge.

Your audience gets to see exactly what you intend to teach with the help of annotated diagrams, handwriting, scribbles, doodles, illustrations, and more.

And if you want to take collaboration several notches up, Explain Everything allows for two-way collaboration. It enables students to communicate back and forth, leave comments, start discussions, open dialogues, and do more.

There are also ways for you to create and share dynamic spaces for combined tasks such as brainstorming. With the free plan, you can enjoy features like up to three projects, one slide per project, collaboration with Voice Chat, etc.

6. Google Jamboard

Jamboard brings in an innovative whiteboarding platform that works well with other Google products (think smartphones, Google WorkSpace, and the rest of the products within Google's ecosystem).

Unlike most online whiteboard tools for teaching, Jamboard is available in a physical 55-inch cloud-powered digital whiteboard.

Its USP though is that you can use it with its app or even a web browser. So that means you can create content on the fly with Jamboard without spending thousands of dollars on the 55″ Interactive Flat Panel screen.

Using Jamboard, you can pull in images using Google search or your work from Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Its easy-to-read handwriting and shape recognition tool works wonderfully well, and you can draw using a stylus and erase with your finger. It's that awesome!

The best part? All your work is saved to the cloud automatically.

The cloud-based app is free, but if you want to buy the physical whiteboard, it starts at $4,999.

7. Stormboard

Stormboard is one of the best online whiteboard tools for teaching that come with an abundance of options and features you can take advantage of.

From corporate onboarding sessions to internal meetings, from live streams to online training, Stormboard can help you do it all. Capture ideas, organize thoughts, present concepts, plan projects, assign tasks, track goals, and stay on top of milestones.

Outside of the basics, we like that the Stormboard also features more than 200+ templates (depending on how you intend to use whiteboard tools) such as Kanban, customer empathy map, brainstorming, and more.

And, you can do more with a string of integrations available with this tool. Jira, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Slack, and Dropbox, to name a few.

The free plan allows you to use five open Storms and is restricted to five users per Storm. But it offers pre-made templates and basic reporting, which does the work for most teachers and educators out there.

8. Doceri

Built exclusively for the iPad initially, Doceri is an interactive whiteboard to give you the freedom to teach online or move away from the podium while in an actual classroom.

So no matter how you choose to use it, it's perfect for you if you are constantly on the move or need a simple way to live stream without hardware constraints whatsoever.

Promising an "untethered" online teaching experience, you can seamlessly create and share your content with this app. PDFs, graphics, presentations, handwritten notes, scribbles, and drawings – share them all online or with a projector.

Further, you can also remotely manage your computer screen on iPad, annotate PowerPoint or Keynote Presentations, and more. Plus, it is available for Windows and Mac too.

While downloading Doceri is free on iPad, in-app purchase is required for watermark removal and logo customization.

9. Explee

Often, you'd want to place a pre-recorded whiteboard explainer video in the middle of your live stream. For example, you can do that at the start of a pre-recorded live stream, and so on. Well, Explee allows you to create and share whiteboard explainer videos anywhere, anytime.

With explainer videos (also called video scribing), you can make complex ideas easier to understand. Fortunately, Explee has more than 6000+ animations to bring your ideas to life. And, you can breathe life into pictures, schemas, and drawings as well.

Try animated video's in and out effects, choose and apply transitions between screens or use Explee's Softcut audio editor to reduce, cut and duplicate your whiteboard animation's audio files.

Opt for a full-featured free trial or buy the "Basic" plan for as low as $7 per month.

10. Splashtop

Enable two-way interactive communication with your audience (or students), and you have it just as good as a physical classroom (while you still can't beat it). Splashtop provides a host of products specifically for businesses, remote support, on-premise, and enterprise -- all geared up to help provide remote communication and collaboration, as the case may be.

Of particular interest to educators looking for online whiteboard tools for teaching is the Splashtop Classroom Cloud. Using this solution, you can control your computer and annotate over the screen and apps from anywhere in the classroom with your iPad or Android device. The solution starts at US$ 29.99 per teacher for a year.

11. Lucidspark

Lucidspark might look like it's aimed at corporate users, but anyone can use it – including teachers, educators, creators, live streamers, and others.

This virtual whiteboard lets students and teachers whiteboard together in real-time from anywhere. With features like digital sticky notes and emoji reactions, it makes learning less overwhelming and more fun. Its standout feature is that it helps teachers quickly review the shared board and verify if all the students have contributed.

The free plan gives three editable boards along with add-ons like emojis and freehand drawing.

12. Draw on Page

With its functionality to draw on any website, the Draw on Page browser extension is one of the best whiteboard tools for teaching.

It gives you the best of both worlds with its Drawing mode and Brushing mode. While the drawing mode lets you draw shapes, the brushing mode enables you to draw with a mouse or pen on the page.

Once you install the extension on Google Chrome, visit any website or launch any document hosted on the cloud to share the document with your viewers. Then, using the extension's toolbar, you can automatically annotate, draw, point out, and do more. You can even print the page after you draw on it.

Overall, the Draw on Page extension is what it sounds like -- simple, intuitive, and accessible.

Incorporating online whiteboard tools for teaching into your live streams

Online whiteboard tools make it easy for you to create explainer videos that you can then download and share during your live streams. Alternatively, you can use the whiteboard tools and share your screen when using StreamYard, to draw on the screen to illustrate concepts, ideas, and more for your viewers who are watching.

Ready to use online whiteboard tools for teaching?

In addition to using online whiteboard tools for teaching, you can also add interactive elements such as polls and quizzes in your educational live streams to bring in better audience retention and engagement.

Choose a whiteboard tool and begin experimenting, to see how you can incorporate it into your live streams when teaching others.

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