Like in many disciplines, in Earth Science, students must be comfortable explaining their thoughts through the use of diagrams. Throughout the year, we create dozens of illustrated notes to help students visualize complex science concepts, including thes seasons, the rocks cycle, plate tectonics, and weather fronts. One particularly drawing-intensive unit is our mapping unit. Students must be able to draw isolines on both weather and topographic maps. Since I got my iPads, earlier in the year, I've been searching for a simple drawing app. The app needed to be incredibly simple and easy to use, inexpensive, and most importantly, it had to allow you to set an image as the background. I don't have styluses (styli?) for my students, so it also had to be easy to control by finger. After exploring dozens of apps, varying in price from free to more than $19.99, I stumbled across BusinessBoard. This simple app does everything I need. It is really just a bare bones whiteboard app with simple photo background and email sharing options. When I got the app, it was free, but it seems to have gone up to $0.99, still worth it in my opinion.

So my first experiences using BusinessBoard involved students practicing the drawing of isolines. I uploaded a dozen or so field maps into the iPad photo albums for student use. These maps are simple diagrams with some sort of data values all over, including temperature and elevation values. Students then used their fingers to draw in isolines. It was great as it was easy to start over after mistakes were made, and it was easy to switch over to new maps. I didn't collect any work from this app yet, but the process should be simple using the email sharing options. The only thing missing from this app is an undo button. If you're looking for a very simple, minimal whiteboard app, check this one out.

Tags: Topographic Map, Contour Map, Isolines, Drawing, Whiteboard App, BusinessBoard App, BusinessBoard