I know there is some debate about the usefulness and inventiveness of interactive whiteboards, however, I can say from my own experience that for those that directly teach or lecture on any topic, the interactive whiteboard provides an incredibly tool for making presentations more rich.
I was intrigued with Wes Fryer’s $5-to-$10 iPad IWB hack, going as far as installing the software and playing with it during some workshops I taught this summer.
I have stumbled upon a better solution that is both automatically cross-platform and cheaper: Splashtop Whiteboard.
Splashtop is not new, and is actually recommended as an alternative in Wes’s original post, however, Splashtop has now created a $10 app that makes the addition of SMART Notebook software and Ink2Go unnecessary.
I have put together a brief screencast demonstrating the functionality:
To install:
- Splashtop Streamer (Free, available for Windows and Mac)
- Splashtop Whiteboard ($9.99, available for iPad 1 and 2)
(As an aside, for those that what to see some of the debate on interactive whiteboards, the above-referenced entry on Wes’s blog includes a fascinating discussion about the usefulness of these devices and the merits of the investment.)
Cannot say enough good things about interactive white boards. I can easily pass these off to my students to use during a lecture or use them myself to highlight the importance of what notes to take. At the same time, my presentations are much more interactive and personal which my students appreciate and expect.