In this tutorial, we have collected some teaching suggestions for using the WeSchool Board. In addition to using it as a ‘traditional’ whiteboard, you can carry out activities to involve all learners and cooperate in real time through WeSchool, both in person and remotely.
For example, with the Board you can:
- easily insert formulas and graphs for a STEM class
- engage the Group members with an interactive exercise
- plan a coding lesson, practicing with different coding languages
- lead a brainstorming session, during a Debate or a Project-based Learning Activity
Inserting formulas and graphs
The Board helps you during a lecture or exercise on the study function; first, it makes writing mathematic and scientific symbols and formulas easier thanks to the Equations Tool. Click on Formula Mode to add them:
- by clicking on the keys at the top of the editor, you can insert common mathematical symbols, such as the square root or the infinity symbol
- you can also use shortcuts directly from the keyboard, such as the “/” key for a fraction line, or the “^” key for the exponent
- finally, the LaTex language is here to support you, so you can add any type of mathematical and scientific symbol. Click hereto read a summary of the symbols you can insert in LaTex
You can easily insert an empty Cartesian plane, on which learners can draw the function step by step. You will find a Cartesian plane to complete among the ready-made math resources, by clicking Insert Resource on the commands bar.
Lastly, you can also quickly generate a graph from a function through the Equations command. Click on Graph Mode and type any function:
Engaging the class with interactive exercises
You can quickly create interactive exercises by taking the opportunity to add images to the Board. This kind of activity is ideal as a warm-up at the beginning of class to capture the learners’ attention and introduce a new topic.
For example, you can transform the whiteboard into a blank map where to identify the place of a battle or the location of a capital city or ask to match names or definitions to one or more of the images:
You can also lock the image so that the learners will not be able to move or edit it. Select the image and click on the lock icon on the menu that will pop up:
A Coding lesson
The Board enables you to use a code editor and experience how the most popular programming languages work. This can help you introduce Python, Javascript, and HTML and highlight each language's differences and practical uses.
You can also write the first lines of code together by asking the learners to put into practice what they have learned:
Leading a brainstorming session
The Board is also a solution for gathering ideas, opinions, and insight from your learners on a topic:
- a brainstorming session is the ideal starting point for a Debate. You can gather the first impressions on a topic and invite learners to express them on the Board. Then you can merge the proposals into macro-areas, simply by moving around what you have already written as if it were post-it notes, to best highlight what’s most important
- if you have designed a Project-based activity, the Board can help teams work together. To do so, you can reserve a Board Tab for each team and monitor their progress and give feedback and suggestions.
Once the brainstorming session is over, you can save the Board content and upload it in a Module; that way it can always be available to the entire Group.