As a teacher of Economics encouraging use of collaborative tools such as Google Docs, I am keen to find a good solution for students to (co-)create drawings they can quickly access, share and publish online.

Google docs now of course has a drawing app as part of its suite of online software. This is, as far as I can tell so far, very good. I have still yet to use it with students. One of its main advantages has to be the ability to add the same sharing controls as you can on other Google Docs. I will give it a go soon.

Recently, I experimented with an alternative. Dabbleboard which in some ways still feels like the beta software it is. However it carries some advantages which I like:

  • Add extra ‘pages’, effectively making a slide show of drawings (see example below)
  • You can save / embed / download the end results quite easily.
  • Intuitively interprets gestures – a rough line gets picked up and converted in to a neat straight line
  • You can click and type text without having to select the text icon
  • The controls are generally good (such as quick clone, multiple selection for grouping)
  • Integrates with a tool called tokbox so you could record/video conversations in response to the drawings (I haven’t used this)
  • People can join a drawing without signing up / registering – just share the email link / embed the image for others to access

Disadvantages:

  • Over-sensitive interpretation of your rough gestures – drawing a curve all to easily becomes a square, for example
  • Less control over editor rights – when I embedded it for access to the students so that they could take control, any ‘random’ guest visitor could take control without my knowing who – lots of fun in class, but a wider worry for who can access and edit (the embed below is locked for editing, but its a shame it is all or nothing approach).

Overall a good option for a rough and ready drawing facility that produces good results. Will experiment further with the sharing / collaborative side of things.