Virtual Post-It Boards---Conceptboard

Knowing school was going to be out for the summer this week, cruising online looking for and listing new web 2.0 applications to explore has been occupying my time for several weeks.  A fairly new application which caught my eye is Conceptboard.  As near as I can tell a company in Stuttgart, Germany created and made this application available a little more than a year ago.

Conceptboard is free for individual use in creating and publishing visual and text content for personal use.  An educator, for a fee of $49.00 per year, can use Conceptboard with a classroom of up to 30 students.  There is a 30 day free trial.

At the home page you can view examples of projects, creatives and education boards.  Numerous features of Conceptboard are highlighted.  Plans and prices are clearly delineated.

To register for a free account enter in your name, email address and a password.  You can elect to sign in with your Facebook, Twitter or Google account.  An email is sent with a link to activate your account.

Upon activation the initial screen offers the user the opportunity to add contacts, upgrade, alter profile settings, view last boards used, see which users are online and view a list of tasks.  Click create a new board to begin.  This can be done from two positions; the button in the upper right hand corner or from the speech bubble next to the house in the upper left hand corner.

Across the top of the new board are a series of icons/words representing:  upload a PDF, image or Office document, take a screenshot from your current browser, scribble with a pen, fineliner, marker, highlighter, draw a square, circle, arrow or line, make a comment, headline or text block, zoom in and out, use a hand tool to drag and drop, a selection tool, change color, or the edit menu to undo, redo, copy, past, delete, bring to the front, send to the back, group or ungroup.  Along the right side are a row of icons which show an outline of the board's table of contents, comments are sorted by time and attachments are numerated.  Simply make a selection to begin.

I decided to gather information for a possible study on author/illustrator, Bob Shea.  I uploaded several images of book covers, took screenshots of two websites, added an arrow and several text boxes.  When taking a screenshot the tool appears on the Conceptboard page but will overlay on any website that you go to.  It will capture a small portion within the frame or the entire page. 

When writing in a text box there are three font choices and three margin justifications. The background color of the text box can be changed; nine options are offered.  When you have a board that you wish to share, click that button for a link or to invite via email.

Here is a link to the board I began.  Conceptboard could not be easier to learn to use; keeping track of any changes that are made by collaborators, giving you an overview of all your boards, allowing you to see who is looking at what portion of the board at any given time and the ability to use it with a variety of hardware, PCs, notebooks, iPads, and digital whiteboards.  These features plus the user friendly format make it an application to add to your virtual toolbox.