The white board is a ubiquitous piece of hardware that you find in classrooms and board rooms all around the world. In some cases it is used as little more than a notice board, or as a convenient close-up projector screen. In other situations it is used (rarely) as a highly interactive aid to group work and decision-making.

It is also common to find a whiteboard in the virtual environment. It may be a self-contained piece of software, and there is a plethora of open source and free examples from which to choose online. Typically it is found nesting inside web-conferencing and virtual classroom tools such as Cisco WebEx, Saba Centra, Adobe Connect and Elluminate.

In my experience it is most often employed only as a carrier for slides that have been prepared in advance. It is uncommon for people to be aware of the versatile uses to which it might be put; they are more likely to be ignorant of its existence altogether.

In essence the modern whiteboard is held back by its heritage, the old-fashioned blackboard. It is significant to note that the term ‘chalk and talk’ came from a rubric in which a teacher or lecturer stood at the front of a class and, well, just talked. If there were any interaction at all it would be to take notes or answer the occasional question whose main purpose was to catch you out in case you succumbed to terminal boredom.

In this and subsequent blogs I’ll talk about whiteboards. I’ll give examples of the sorts of uses to which they are, have been, and might be put in the service of education and training. I’ll be making the point that the online whiteboard (OWB) is perhaps the most underused of resources. I’ll describe how it might be used to advance interactive, constructivist and experiential learning, for dynamic communication, problem-solving, to support collaborative team work and action-planning.

I’ll also offer some comparisons of form and functionality to help you to choose a system that meets your need. I hope readers will contribute their own examples and correct any inaccuracies where I comment on the scope and limitations of various different OWB systems.

Please come back soon for more on white boards and how to resist “white boredom”.