Fun Tool: Sketching with Excalidraw Excalidraw is a versatile open-source tool for anyone who needs to visualize ideas, collaborate on drawings, and create simple diagrams with a hand-drawn aesthetic. This tool m…

 

Excalidraw is a versatile open-source tool for anyone who needs to visualize ideas, collaborate on drawings, and create simple diagrams with a hand-drawn aesthetic. This tool makes it easy to convey ideas and concepts informally. 

What can you do with it?

• brainstorm and sketch ideas
• take notes or draw a mindmap
• draw a diagram or flowchart
• share the canvas and doodle collaboratively
• create a quick visual aid
• download your finished drawing to your computer
• save a personal library of elements you've drawn and reuse them

Excalidraw was designed with a simple user interface. At the top of a whiteboard, there is a menu of tools. Select the one you want to use with your mouse or type the tool's number to activate it.

Once you activate a tool, its options appear on the left of the screen. 

If you spend a bit of time getting a drawing just right, you can save it to a library and reuse it later in other drawings. Even better, you can import libraries others have created and shared from Excalidraw Libraries. (If you teach math or software/web development, search the page - there are lots of goodies for you.)

You can export your finished drawing as a web-friendly PNG file. You can also save a .excalidraw file that will be fully editable when opened in Excalidraw again. You could share this file with students to give them a blank template to build on in their own drawing.

Excalidraw is easy to learn, completely free, and if you need help, there is an excellent playlist of tutorial videos on YouTube. We'd love to know what you think if you try it out, and we'd also love to see what you make with it.