Teaching
An online board for an English lesson: what it needs to hold
Published 13 September 2026
A whiteboard app gives the teacher an empty canvas every lesson. A lesson board has to remember the course, run the tasks, show the group how it is doing without showing who got it wrong, and forget the scribbles.
An online board for an English lesson needs more than a pen and a blank page. It should hold the course it belongs to, run tasks that mark themselves, show the class its answers as totals rather than names, and let the teacher's scribbles go when the lesson ends. Most whiteboard tools handle the first lesson well and start every lesson after it from scratch.
One board per course, not a folder of boards
A board that starts empty every time means rebuilding the lesson or digging for last week's file. A course board keeps its modules, lessons, tasks and media on one canvas, and the teacher narrows the view to the part being taught. The next group on the same course starts from the same board.
Draft, publish, reset
Preparing a lesson in front of students is how half-finished slides end up on screen. Saving keeps a draft, publishing is what students see, and resetting takes the board back to the published version when something tried in class did not work.
Ink that does not stay
Whatever the teacher draws over the board while explaining belongs to that moment. It is never saved, so the course does not fill up with arrows from last Tuesday.
Tasks on the board, not next to it
A gap-fill on a slide is a picture of a task. On a lesson board the task is live: students answer it, closed tasks are marked as they answer, and the teacher can run a whole pack of tasks for the group at once.
Answers as totals, never as a list of names
When the teacher asks the class something, the class sees how the group answered, how many chose each option, on the board itself. Nobody sees who got it wrong. Students who are not afraid of being the wrong name on the screen answer more honestly, and the teacher finds out what the group really thinks.
Following the teacher, or working alone
Students follow the teacher's view or go through the lesson at their own pace. The teacher can sit next to one of them, see their screen, give a hint and flag the step that went wrong, without the rest of the class watching.
What else belongs on the board
- A poll for a quick check before moving on.
- A timer for pair work.
- Vocabulary cards that speak, in a voice and at a speed each listener picks.
- The video or audio the lesson needs, where it needs it.
What it does not need to be
A video call. The group talks on the call it already uses, and the lesson keeps its Zoom or Meet link next to the board. It also has to work on the phone a student actually has: the student's side installs like an app and keeps working when the connection is poor.
How the board works in EdTechCore
EdTechCore has one board per course, live for everyone in the lesson, with tasks, media, polls and timers on it. The tour walks through a lesson on it, with interactive mock-ups of each part.