What better way for students to express ideas than on a digital canvas where they can collaborate with peers? To enhance interactive learning, Microsoft Whiteboard, integrated within Microsoft Teams, is offering brand new features designed to increase lesson engagement.

Let’s dive in!

Enjoy a fresh, modern look and feel

Recent changes to Whiteboard have improved functionality, simplified the accessibility and discoverability of its features, and supported its ever-growing capabilities. If you’re using Whiteboard on a desktop, laptop, or tablet, you’ll notice that the inking tools and content creation menus have been separated and now include an app bar that provides all your collaboration and board-specific properties.

Do you use Whiteboard on your mobile device? Whiteboard’s mobile version now features large and colorful icons that are practical for touch, mouse, and pen users. The creation panel and board controls are now also hidden to create more room for a neater user experience.

Try out Reactions

Students working in groups can now easily and quickly respond to each other’s ideas and creations with Reactions. Choosing from a set of eight fun and interactive reactions, students can communicate casual feedback to one another.

Explore 40+ new templates

Whether it’s for a brainstorm or a group assignment, Whiteboard now offers an extensive variety of new and fully customizable templates suited for any task or creative session. With these categorized templates, educators can help students stay organized while being creative.

Use 12 new sticky notes and note grids

Coming in 12 different vibrant colors, sticky notes jazz up canvas visuals, keeping students engaged and eager to participate. Even better, educators can use the sticky note colors to create coding systems that organize ideas and identify contributors. Speaking of organization, the new note grids help educators structure whiteboarding sessions by formatting sticky notes and titling grids.


Insert images

Students sometimes need assistance capturing their ideas easily and accurately. Now, Whiteboard users can use the “Insert image” feature to download and add photos and images that not only help illustrate ideas but liven the digital canvas.

We hope these new Whiteboard features help to increase engagement and student participation in your classroom. Explore the latest Teams features and discover more ways to bring your classroom to life when you download Teams for free today.