Good solution for sharing hand-written notes with remote team in real time?

Recently at work I shifted to working mostly with a team that’s in a different state. We have screen-sharing software on our computers, but a lot of times we want to write equations. Typesetting them in something like TeX is annoyingly slow for real-time conversation, and writing them out in words (e.g. Grad instead of the gradient symbol) is just irritating. So we’ve been getting by with pointing a web cam at a whiteboard, leading to lots of “can you rewrite that a little lower? Whoops, it went out of focus”.

Anyone know a good, low-cost solution to this? It occurred to me that we could get tablets with a stylus and some kind of drawing and sharing app. Or is there some kind of drawing-pad-and-stylus device I can plug into my laptop, so that I could just use our existing screen sharing program? (That would have the advantage that we can plug our laptops in to an external monitor so everyone in the room can easily see. I’m not sure if that’s possible with a tablet.)

Price is an issue because I’d be trying to convince my boss to pay for it.

Do you have to have a tablet and stylus, or can you draw with the mouse? If mouse-drawing works, there’s a number of free screen-sharing apps that let you share virutal whiteboards.

It’s hard for me to write equations quickly and legibly drawing with the mouse. (I just tested in MS Paint to confirm this – it was ugly.) I would prefer something that uses a stylus.

I don’t have any kind of tablet or stylus right now, but can probably talk my boss into buying a couple for each office if the price is reasonable. So I’m looking for a recommendation like:

(A) “Here’s a pad and stylus that you can plug into the USB port of your laptop, that works with some whiteboard-type program,”

or (B) “Get an ipad/Samsung Galaxy/Kindle Fire/ Whatever, and download this app which lets you draw on a whiteboard and share it.”

or © “Here’s some other option you haven’t thought of, but I’ve used it and it works well.”

I already have screen sharing software for my laptop (we use Cisco WebEx), so if it’s (A) then I don’t need to know how to share it, just what device to buy and software to install for drawing with a stylus.

I’d give a Wacom Bamboo Pad a try. It comes wired or wireless.

I use Jot Free as a virtual whiteboard for my ipad for drawing molecules and chemical equations. It has a sharing feature as well as emailing or converting to PDF. It works well for me and I don’t mind the ads. I’m not sure if there are upgraded features in the paid version that make it worth it or not. Free works for me.

Try using on premise RHUB remote support appliances for remotely sharing desktops. It is easy to use, is only one time cost & occupies less bandwidth; hence provides better speed.

My daughter got a larger Wacom surface for Christmas and frankly, its pretty awesome and would be perfect (though likely overkill) for what you want to do.

If almost-but-not-quite real time would do, just have someone snap a pic of the whiteboard every minute or two and email each pic to the other group right after it gets taken.

Seconding! The Bamboo is small, not expensive, and very easy to install/use. Although the Intuos looks cheaper even.

The Intuos Pen & Touch replaces the Bamboo. It may just be a rename, but the photos look different. I just ordered one, with the wireless kit yesterday.

Or they could use drums or smoke signals! :stuck_out_tongue:

Definitely a low-tech way of using high-tech tools, but it’s simple and I’ve done exactly this several times.

But they are already using a webcam pointed at a white boardboard. Istm emailing snapshots is a step back.

is there a way to plug my tablet into my laptop and to share what i am drawing to the group?

How does the RHUB work? does it let you write remotely on the screen

Another vote for a Wacom device.

For software, Microsoft OneNote is part of the Office suite and is very good for handwritten notes. You could even put the OneNote file on a shared drive or server, and have both groups open the same file. It will get updated in real time, and of course you can keep the file for record. (Though I’ve only tried this on a local network; I don’t know if it’s fast enough to be usable over a long distance Internet connection.)