Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Have you ever thought about incorporating freehand drawing elements into your lessons and presentations as a teacher? Digital sketching is a fun and useful tool to create simple illustrations or annotations into text. You can even teach your students to use these tech tools to add creativity and complexity to their projects. Richard Byrne breaks down a list of top drawing and sketching tools available.

• OneNote-This Microsoft tool can be used alongside the typing tools so you can effortlessly switch back and forth between the two.
• Jamboard-This simple and classic tool allow for a minimalist approach yet still creates terrific drawings.
• Paper/Bamboo Paper-Both an iPad version and Android, provides more complexity and detail than Jamboard for those who need more versatility.
• Book Creator-Takes it to the next level and allows students to create illustrations and little books with their drawings. Complete with a Autodraw function for those of us who are artistically impaired.
• Canva-Best for single frame sketches among many other features as you all know.

If you are looking for an upgrade to boring old pencil and sketchpad, check out one of these programs for an instant boost and the wow factor to any project!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In a similar vein, blogger Jacqui Murray shares her top tips for accessing a PDF editor. As a teacher, you will most definitely need to be familiar in working with PDFs. From lesson plans, administrative documents, to parent correspondence, there will come a time when you need to edit, merge, and sign documents. She recommends the following options when considering a PDF editor. I am including a unique feature for each one.

• Format PDF-Can add annotations good for collaboration.
• Adobe-Easily integrates with other Adobe products such as Photoshop.
• PDF Element-Utilizes OCR technology which enables extractions of text from scanned documents.
• Nitro Pro-Document security options including watermarks and password/encryption protection.
• Foxit Phantom PDF-Fast performance and low system requirements.

Read Murray’s blog post for more elaboration here, pick your favorite, then begin handling PDF’s with confidence!

References

Byrne, R. (2023, July 25). Five good tools for digital sketching. Retrieved from Practical Ed Tech: https://practicaledtech.com/2023/07/25/five-good-tools-for-digital-sketching/

Murray, J. (2023, July 25). Top PDF editors among teachers and educators. Retrieved from Ask a Tech Teacher: https://askatechteacher.com/