OpenBoard

OpenBoard originated in Swiss academia, starting as Uniboard at the University of Lausanne before being forked from Open-Sankoré to give classrooms a distraction-free teaching board. Today, sustained by the Department of Public Education of Geneva, it remains a dedicated desktop whiteboard focused on in-person instruction. That heritage means the entire interface centers on the podium, projector, and stylus rather than subscription accounts or remote team dashboards.

Why OpenBoard instead of Explain Everything

Explain Everything approaches whiteboarding as a cloud-first collaboration service. It emphasizes touchscreen tablets, persistent cloud accounts, and real-time remote participation where students join sessions from individual devices. That model offers flexibility for hybrid classrooms or recorded tutorials, but it depends on reliable internet, student seat management, and recurring subscription tiers once cloud storage caps are reached.

OpenBoard replaces that networked infrastructure with a direct, local presentation workflow. It runs as an offline application on Windows, macOS, and Linux, saving boards directly to local storage without sign-in prompts or network access. An instructor can sketch on an uncluttered canvas, import PDF slide decks, and switch immediately to Desktop Mode to annotate directly over web browsers or desktop tools. OpenBoard also includes an integrated podcast recorder that captures microphone audio and pen strokes into video files. The trade-off is collaboration: OpenBoard does not support multi-user editing, so teachers needing synchronized student participation must look elsewhere.

What it does well

• Runs entirely offline without student accounts, cloud sign-ins, or network dependencies.
• Desktop Mode enables immediate drawing and annotation over active browser windows and desktop software.
• Built-in classroom tools provide virtual rulers, compasses, protractors, and grid backgrounds.
• Integrated podcast recorder captures screen drawings and microphone audio into video files.
• Multi-screen projection separates live classroom display slides from private presenter tools.
• Document tray organizes multi-page lessons into folders and exports clean PDF handouts.
• Supports drag-and-drop embedding of local images, audio, video files, and interactive web widgets.