You know about ebooks, but have you heard of dbook?

Two years ago, I attended a lecture of Professor Masami Isoda about dbook, a flash-based software developed by CRICED at the University of Tsukuba in Japan used for creating interactive digital textbooks.  The usual practice in dbook is taking a picture (or scanning) of book pages and embedding ready-made tools to construct an interactive worksheets.

The mathematics electronic whiteboard that I have posted here was an empty file of dbook. If you want to know more about dbook, and download the software, click here.

I will make a tutorial about dbook soon, so keep posted.

Free Mathematics Whiteboard Applet

Last January, I posted a link of an electronic whiteboard that teachers can use for classroom presentations.  This time, there is a better applet that you can use for presenting as well as teaching mathematics. This applet was created using Dbook, a Japanese software that enables teachers to create intereactive electronic books. I will post a separate article later about it.

The Mathematics Whiteboard

This applet has the usual pens and eraser tools.  What is more interesting is that it has also mathematical tools such as ruler, compass and straightedge, protractor, and triangles. You can also draw point, line and circle tool. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to upload it in a free server, since it contains an executable file (most servers won’t allow it), but you can download it here and use it offline.

Dbook is a Flash-based program, so you will need a Flash Player.

Update: If you cannot download the white board applet in the link above, click here to download it from another location.

Free Whiteboard Software

If you are using computers during lectures, or fond of screencasting, you would probably need a software where you could scribble.  You would need a blackboard or a whiteboard software. There are several free software that you could use – you could use PaintBrush or Flash Player.

One of my latest internet dig, however, would also be a good choice. It is called  Classic WhiteBoard. It is available in Windows, Linux and Mac platform. Its screenshot is shown below.

What I love about this software is that it is very easy to use (click here to view screencast tutorial) and it really looks like a whiteboard.  It works very much like PaintBrush.  One of the disadvantages, though, is that it has only four colors.

Update: I have uploaded a better whiteboard software added with math tools such as compass, straightedge, triangle and protractor here.