Favorite tablets/black board equivalents for online lectures?

[Beebee]

What are everyone's favorite tablets, pens, and similar equivalent for online lectures? I would like to get something so I can "write on the board" as needed during my Zoom lectures in Fall.

If you have any favorite software, particularly for chemistry-type teaching (e.g. drawing organic chemistry mechanisms easily and fast during lectures, or drawing on pre-prepared slides), that would be very much appreciated too. I prefer Windows/Android rather than Apple, but others on this board may have other preferences.

Sorry if there is a thread I am missing; my search terms brought up too many unrelated threads. Thank you for the advice!

[doc700]

I taught physics this spring on Zoom.  I used an iPad.  For some reason, several weeks into the Zoom teaching I stopped being able to connect my iPad to Zoom via a cord but the airplay still worked (the cord was still charging the iPad).  Not clear why that happened but it was reliable over airplay.

I used goodnotes which is fairly basic but worked well for me.  I made slides in powerpoint where I listed the problems or main concepts and added plenty of blank slides.  I then exported the slides to my iPad. In class I would have the problem statement typed but for formulas or working out problems would use the blank slides to write on. 

I also had colleagues who had good luck just using their smart phone as a camera on a gooseneck ($10) and writing on a physical sheet of paper.  I didn't personally want to do that is my phone is old/runs out of battery/sucks but if you have a reliable smart phone that was super cheap and worked well for others.

[Caracal]

What are everyone's favorite tablets, pens, and similar equivalent for online lectures? I would like to get something so I can "write on the board" as needed during my Zoom lectures in Fall.

If you have any favorite software, particularly for chemistry-type teaching (e.g. drawing organic chemistry mechanisms easily and fast during lectures, or drawing on pre-prepared slides), that would be very much appreciated too. I prefer Windows/Android rather than Apple, but others on this board may have other preferences.

Sorry if there is a thread I am missing; my search terms brought up too many unrelated threads. Thank you for the advice!

If you want to draw on your slides, you don't need a tablet, you can do that very easily in Zoom, using annotate. If you prefer to use one, that should work fine for most things you'd do with it. If you're going to be annotating a lot, it might be easier to do that on a standard monitor instead of a touchscreen, at least if you're planning to do it while you're on video. If you're always leaning forward into the camera to draw on the screen, that is going to be fairly distracting to students.

[polly_mer]

I'd go with a physical paper and camera over the Zoom annotate tool for chemical formulae.  The Zoom annotate works OK for circling an item on a slide or similar one-off, but it's not nearly as good as paper or a white board when the details matter.

[mamselle]

I was just going to ask, how does anyone get Zoom annotate not to look like a scribbly 3-year-old's drawing?

I love 3-year-olds' scribbly drawings, by the way, but trying to write out a diminished 7th chord by drawing a quick 5-line-staff and the noteheads was really laughable.

I ended up doing a share-screen with MuseScore (my current go-to music notation software) and entering the notes on that. They show up in real-time, and by sharing the sound, can even be played back (just if that's useful for anyone else) using the system's playback setup.

I'm reading these options with interest in case I have other kinds of online writing, to do--or visuals to insert and annotate--though.

M.

[the_geneticist]

We had pretty good luck with a few methods:

• use a video camera set up over a physical piece of paper to write
  write on a small whiteboard hanging in view of your desktop camera
  use a tablet with a stylus/pen mouse
  screen share a Google sheet page & use that to write/draw/annotate

Only a few folks used the whiteboard feature in Zoom.  I agree that it looks like childish scribbles unless you do a LOT of practice.

[Caracal]

We had pretty good luck with a few methods:

• use a video camera set up over a physical piece of paper to write
  write on a small whiteboard hanging in view of your desktop camera
  use a tablet with a stylus/pen mouse
  screen share a Google sheet page & use that to write/draw/annotate

Only a few folks used the whiteboard feature in Zoom.  I agree that it looks like childish scribbles unless you do a LOT of practice.

Fair enough, I'm not a board writer. My handwriting is atrocious and the one time I tried to do it my students looked extremely alarmed, like they had realize class was being taught either by a madman or something having a stroke. On the occasions I need to put something up on the board as we go, I just type.

[Beebee]

Thank you all. I tried the "annotate" on Zoom, and as others said, it's fine for a few small things but not for real writing. Maybe I could have the structures up on slides, draw the arrows on annotate? The same is true for whiteboard - though I think it COULD be OK if I had a tablet (rather than the wobbly touchscreen of my laptop). Really writing text doesn't work, but I could potentially draw some things maybe... I like that it saves the scribbles at the end of the session, at least. Partly why I am asking for tablet and stylus recommendations.

I have thought about a white board behind me. I don't know - my current "home office" is my bedroom, so I'd have to do quite a bit of figuring out, or do it in my actual office - but then the students will complain they couldn't see etc. We'll see. Please keep the tips coming!

[mamselle]

Just "fly in" arrows if you're doing PPt slides.

Create the arrow (and/or a circle) in the Insert/shapes menu, then go to "animate and select the "fly-in" method you want...I default to using "from upper left" since they'll be reading L-to-R.

Just click anywhere on the slide once you're viewing it, and it will fly into place.

You can do more on the same page serially, or get fancy and use the timing setup to fly things in together.

I use that function a lot: my favorite is a 3-point wide arrow in dark red (the first red that shows up on the color bar) with a matching dark red cicle/oval of the same width with no fill.

M.

[polly_mer]

Just "fly in" arrows if you're doing PPt slides.

Create the arrow (and/or a circle) in the Insert/shapes menu, then go to "animate and select the "fly-in" method you want...I default to using "from upper left" since they'll be reading L-to-R.

Just click anywhere on the slide once you're viewing it, and it will fly into place.

You can do more on the same page serially, or get fancy and use the timing setup to fly things in together.

I use that function a lot: my favorite is a 3-point wide arrow in dark red (the first red that shows up on the color bar) with a matching dark red cicle/oval of the same width with no fill.

M.

This is hugely time-consuming to get right for chemistry.  I did everything by hand when teaching chemistry and physics because getting the slides right for a twenty-minute talk takes me hours, especially the details for intro talks.

Beebee, do you have access to a scanner or good digital camera?  It might be faster to prepare what you want by hand on physical paper, take pictures, and then assemble into a slideshow.  Limit how much you do live in favor of what you know needs to be done.  I loved teaching math with the document camera once I got the hang of it.

Then, use Zoom annotate to circle or point to your hand-drawn pictures if necessary.

[clean]

My university has us use WebEx.  I was trying to use a wacom Intuos (as that is what I was given when I asked for something I can write with).  It sucks (or I am unable to make it work worth a damn!)

My brother teaches math and uses an Ipad and some other software (name escapes me).

Any suggestions for using an Ipad and WebEx, or a different Wacom device?

I had not thought of using a camera above paper, but that is exactly what is in the room when I teach in class.  I may have to consider something like that if all else fails.  Essentially, that is what I am looking to accomplish, only in an electronic form so that the students could actually have a word or PDF copy of the class notes. 

I suppose that with actual paper, I would either need to buy a printer with a scanner or take a trip to the office every few weeks to upload the paper copies.

Any other suggestions??

thanks!

[polly_mer]

Use the camera on your computer or cell phone to take pictures that you can then upload to the relevant computer.  A good enough digital camera with a USB cable for transfer was under $200 the last time I looked.

My refurbished Surface Pro has a camera that is good enough to point at the paper and take a picture that can be emailed anywhere, including my good desktop with actual useful software.

[Parasaurolophus]

For proofs and other formal stuff, I bought a whiteboard and used my phone (and a rickety setup using two cut-down fence posts and a framed screen with a flap cut out) to record myself. I then put the videos up on YouTube.

It doesn't really work for real-time stuff, however. I've put in a request fr the department to buy a document camera. That should do the trick.

[onthefringe]

I signed into zoom twice, once from my desktop, with video and sound so students could see me, and once as my iPad, without video or sound. When I wanted to show slides or write something, I shared the screen from my iPad, and used Explain everything to display and live annotate slides, or draw things from scratch on a blank page. It worked pretty well overall.

I actually made some asynchronous short lecture videos the same way, that way the video has my head talking over on the side, and my content taking up the rest of the screen. Several students said it was easier to stay focused on videos where they could see my face than on videos that just showed the content.

[eigen]

I signed into zoom twice, once from my desktop, with video and sound so students could see me, and once as my iPad, without video or sound. When I wanted to show slides or write something, I shared the screen from my iPad, and used Explain everything to display and live annotate slides, or draw things from scratch on a blank page. It worked pretty well overall.

This is what I did- my whole department is going this way for Fall. Personally, I make PowerPoints and include blank pages for when I want to draw/write, and then export as a PDF. I then use GoodNotes to present that- it has some really nice digital laser pointer options too.

I do the same thing in the classroom, incidentally- I project from my iPad and use it as a digital whiteboard.

One of the things I like about this is that it lets me save a lecture multiple ways. I upload the audio, the PDF slides, and the video separately. The first two options are great for students who have poor internet/still want to follow along with the lecture.

The file sizes of recorded lectures with sound + real time annotation via the iPad are small, too- around 45-60 mb recorded with Zoom, if I don't include my talking head as well.

The whiteboard feature in Zoom is indeed horrible. The key is to use a second app for a "whiteboard" and then screenshare with Zoom.