50Classroom tools
Hide part of the board until you want it seen, or draw every eye to one spot. Both are saved with the board, so a curtain left over question two is still there when you open the file again — and in replay.
Find itThe Presentation button in the top bar holds all three — curtain, spotlight and laser — along with Show, which starts a full-screen show. While you are presenting, the bar carries a one-tap switch for each — Curtain, Spot, Laser, Calc — and Options opens that very same menu for the settings behind them. When the show ends, the laser and any curtain or spotlight are turned off for you.
CoverCurtain hangs from whichever edge you choose — down, up, across or back — and you drag its bright edge to reveal a line at a time. Patch covers one part; drag it, or pull its corner to resize. All over hides the lot. Dim sets how dark the cover is, from a light veil you can still see shapes through to properly opaque; it sits with the cover options, and the spotlight has the same slider for its own darkness.
FocusSpotlight dims everything but a soft pool of light — choose Circle or Rectangle; a rectangle suits a line of working or a row of a table. Reveal is a hard-edged window you slide over the part you want seen and resize by its corner. Size, Dim and Edge set how big, how dark and how soft the rim is.
Following lightSwitch on Follow the pointer and the spotlight goes where you point instead of being dragged — Follow speed sets how quickly it catches up. Tap the board to lock the light where it is, so you can put the pen down and talk; tap again to let it follow on. Breathe gently gives it a slow pulse, which keeps a still light from disappearing into the background. You can say whether it answers to the mouse, a pen or a finger, which matters on a board where a palm rests on the glass.
Laser pointerPoint at the work without marking it. Nine styles: Classic dot and Large dot, a soft Halo, an Arrow or a Cursor that sit clear of what you are pointing at, a fine Crosshair for an exact spot, a comet Trail, a Pulse that breathes so a still hand still reads from the back of the room, and a Ripple that sends rings out from where you press. Set the colour, size, opacity, glow, trail length, pulse speed and how long the point fades for; turn Rings when you press on or off; and choose which of mouse, pen and touch it answers to. While the laser is on the pen does not draw, so nothing it does is ever saved, printed or replayed.
CalculatorOne panel with five modes. Standard for four-function work; Scientific for trig, inverse and hyperbolic functions, reciprocal trig (sec, csc, cot), logs (ln, log, log2), powers, roots, factorials, floor, ceil, abs and mod, with a DEG / RAD / GRAD switch; Programmer; Date; and Convert. A memory row — MS, MR, M+, M−, MC — and both C and AC. Type with the number pad while it is open; Enter works out the answer. It answers as you type and lets you carry an answer into the next sum. Unlike the cover tools it is only a helper — never saved, printed or replayed.
Programmer modeWork in HEX, DEC, OCT or BIN, at BYTE, WORD, DWORD or QWORD width. All four bases are shown at once alongside the bit pattern, so you can see a number in every form together. Bitwise AND, OR, XOR, NOT, NAND, NOR, shifts Lsh and Rsh, rotations RoL and RoR, and Mod. Switching base converts what is showing rather than re-reading the digits. Sums are done in whole numbers at the chosen width, so large 64-bit values stay exact.
Date modeTwo jobs: the difference between two dates — in years, months and days, with the day and week totals underneath — and add or subtract a period of years, months and days from a starting date. Month arithmetic clamps to the end of the month, so 31 January plus one month lands on 28 or 29 February rather than rolling into March.
ConvertThirteen categories: Length, Area, Volume, Mass, Speed, Duration, Energy, Power, Pressure, Angle, Acceleration, Data and Temperature. Pick a category, a value and the two units; Swap turns the conversion round. The value box takes a sum as well as a number, so 2×3 is a fine thing to type. Temperature handles the offsets properly, and data covers both the decimal (kB, MB) and binary (KiB, MiB) families.
Working to the boardPlace on board puts the current calculation on the board as a real equation object — selectable, resizable, and re-openable in the equation editor like any other equation. Every step is kept in the History list underneath, each with its own → button to place that one step. All steps → board places the whole working as one stacked object, which is usually what you want for teaching: the class sees how the answer was reached, not just the answer. Memory actions are recorded too, so MS, M+ and MR appear in the working alongside the sums.
TipA board has one cover at a time, so choosing a focus tool puts the shade away and the other way round. While a cover is on, dragging moves it rather than drawing underneath.
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