Online Management Practices
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White Board Do's and Don'ts

Originally created for the KCPDC Tech Expo 2002 meeting on Saturday, January 26, 2002, by Ben Ward, Educational Technology Center, Johnson County Community College (http://web.jccc.net/edtech). Also published in LENS: Learning Exchange Networks, Module 4.

White boards add the dimension drawing and importing images to the online synchronous learning environment. This advantage comes at the expense of loosing screen real estate that is conventionally available in chatrooms. However, when a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes it is just better to show your students.

Do’s

Don’ts
  • Set guidelines for when elements can be added and removed from the white board
  • Have your images ready and uploaded prior to the scheduled
    meeting time
  • Practice anything you plan to draw on the white board
  • Storyboard out any lessons or demonstrations you plan to share over the white board
  • Have your students test out any contributions they plan to make
    in advance
  • Set aside some time for student to play with the interface so that can become familiar with the interface
  • Use the white board for individually scheduled critiques as well as group critiques
  • Forget to save your images in a file format that can be read by all browsers (gif, jpg, png)
  • Clutter your white board with too much text or too many images
  • Fail to test your images prior to meeting with your students
  • Forget that not all computer screens are the same size or the same resolution as yours
  • Upload and import large image files
  • Let accidentally deleted drawings and images throw you
  • Expect great quality drawing to be produced
  • Use a white board where a chatroom or an email with an attachment will serve the same

Remember that a lot of what makes online learning a unique opportunity for both students and instructors is the chance to create new learning communities. Success in this endeavor is dependent on several key concepts: honesty, responsiveness, relevance, respect, openness, and empowerment.