Using an Interactive Whiteboard to Teach From Your Own PDFs

Most interactive whiteboard tools start with a blank canvas. Teachers rarely do: they teach from a worksheet, a past paper, a textbook page or a diagram they've already prepared, so the whiteboard that fits a lesson is one that lets you teach on your own materials. Here's how to use ClassKite's Smart Board teaching as an interactive whiteboard built around the PDFs you already have.

Open your page, not a blank board

Upload a PDF and present it full-screen on the display. It opens as it prints, with nothing reformatted or stripped out, so the page your class sees is the page you prepared. Slide decks work too once you export them to PDF.

Write on it the way you'd use a whiteboard

With PDF annotation you have a full ink toolbox: pen, calligraphy ink, highlighter, shapes, text boxes and sticky notes. Work through the page live: underline the key step, sketch the diagram, model the method, as you would on a physical board, but on top of the real material.

Keep the class on the same page

What makes it interactive is that students follow along on their own devices:

• Live stroke streaming shows your annotations to students in your board view as you write.
• Follow-me paging moves students who have the same PDF open to the page you scroll to, so nobody gets lost.
• Push practice in a tap to go from explaining to a quick check without switching apps.

It runs in the browser, so it works on a smart board at the front, a laptop, or a tablet.

Annotate once, reuse next time

Your marked-up copy is kept on your device the moment you write and saved to your ClassKite account automatically within a few minutes, or straight away when you press Save. If the wifi drops, it waits on the device and is sent when the connection is back. Next year, open the annotated version instead of a clean page, and the worked example you built live is still there.

Try it free: upload a PDF and teach your next lesson on it.

Before your first lesson on the board

Five minutes of checking saves you finding a problem with 30 students watching.

• Open the file on the display you will teach from, not only on your laptop. Board resolutions vary, and it is worth knowing how much of the page you get.
• Check the page you plan to start on. Scrolling to page 14 in front of the class is a slow minute; opening on it is not.
• Have one student device joined so you can see what they see. Follow-me paging and live strokes are easier to trust once you have watched them arrive.
• Know your file size. Very large scanned PDFs are slower to open than exported ones; free and paid plans allow different sizes and page counts.

How this differs from a traditional interactive whiteboard

An IWB app usually gives you an infinite blank canvas and a library of shapes, and expects you to build the lesson inside it. That is a different job from the one most teachers have.

• Page-first, not canvas-first. You teach on your own material, in its own layout. There is no infinite canvas to get lost in and nothing to rebuild.
• The annotation belongs to the page. Your ink is saved against that page of that file, so reopening the lesson brings back the worked example exactly where it was.
• Teaching tools, not a design package. Pen, calligraphy ink, highlighter, shapes, text and sticky notes cover what a lesson needs.
• Students take part. From the page they are watching, you can push practice for them to answer without changing app.

Making a worked example worth keeping

The reusable part of live teaching is the worked example you build stroke by stroke while explaining. A few habits make it worth reopening next year:

• Work in one colour for the method and a second for the correction; a year later you will still be able to read which is which.
• Leave the wrong turn on the page if you took one deliberately. A crossed-out first attempt teaches more than a clean answer.
• Save at the end of the lesson while the reasoning is fresh, rather than trusting you will tidy it later.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a physical smart board?

No. ClassKite runs in the browser on a smart board, laptop or tablet. Any display at the front of the room works, and students follow on their own devices.

Can students see my annotations live?

Yes. Students who switch to your board view see your strokes as you write, and follow-me paging keeps students on the same PDF on the page you're teaching.

What file types can I teach from?

PDFs. If your material is a slide deck or document, export it to PDF first and it will open as it prints.

Which plan do I need for this?

Teaching from your PDFs with live annotation works on the free Teacher Basic plan. Teacher Plus and the School plan allow larger files, more pages and more topics per class: see the comparison.

Can I teach from a PowerPoint?

Export it to PDF first and it works exactly like any other file. ClassKite renders PDFs; it does not convert slide decks itself.

What happens to my annotations if the wifi drops?

Your ink is kept on the device as you work and is saved to your account when the connection returns, so a dropped connection mid-lesson does not lose the board.

Can I annotate on a tablet instead of a smart board?

Yes. A stylus makes handwriting easier, but a finger works too (turn on Finger Drawing in the annotation settings), and so does a mouse.

Do students need the same file?

No. They open the shared section in ClassKite and see your page and your annotations there; there is nothing for them to download.

Related reading: how to create digital practice from a PDF and best practices to get the most out of ClassKite. When the explaining's done, push a live practice straight from the board.