When I started down this road, I wanted teachers, gasping for tools that aren’t stuffed with Gen AI features, to have access to fun tools they could use with their students. The job didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and was “Mission Possible” even for a non-coder like me. Now, teachers everywhere have access to a multi-lingual interactive whiteboard that works in a web browser, can save work to Google Drive (or kick out PNGs, PDFs, JSON files, too), or MySQL support. And, it does its best to comply with Texas law and expectations.

DrawSplat^TM is free. Everything.

Every teacher, every student, every classroom, campus, and district uses DrawSplat^TM at no cost. The software, the Apps Script backend, the MySQL deployment, the compliance features, the Community board — all free under AGPL-3.0-or-later. (source)

This is one of my fun, evening projects, so much so that my wife started asking, “Where are you going?” after the evening news.

Working with Code (early on, but switched to Codex) and Codex on MX Linux to generate an interactive whiteboard. I wanted something that combined the features of Kid Pix, Jamboard, The Graph Club, Mermaid Live, Concept Mapping, etc. into ONE tool.

Of course, I only had a vague recollection of what those paid programs do from my history of working with them in the classroom. And, I wanted the benefit of working with them in my browser window.

After getting the basic look of DrawSplat down, I moved in on other exciting features, all of which you can access online.

Some, like the Quick Classroom Tools, you can use without even opening the whiteboard portion, although they are also there, too:

• Bingo Card GeneratorLive
• Bingo Caller
• Coin Flipper
• Dice Roller
• Dicebreaker Creator
• Markdown Studio
• Meme Puzzle
• Rubric Builder
• Story Wheel
• Word Search Maker

I have to admit that others are simply so much fun, especially since I generated a variety of art work for the ScratchArt feature and coloring book images. Of course, you don’t have to be limited to the image library in DrawSplat…you can add your own.

It’s not all fun and games.

Privacy Policy, Compliance, and Terms of Service

I started with a PROTECT vetted privacy policy and terms of service. Then, Stacy Pattenaude sent me an email with additional suggestions. This resulted in Texas Compliance, which took several sessions on a weekend to add.

The laws this page covers include:

• Texas SCOPE Act (Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act) — protects Texas minors under 18 with rules on age registration, parental controls, harmful-content strategies, and data-use limits. The Texas Attorney General publishes an overview at texasattorneygeneral.gov. Parts have been challenged in court; we implement what is currently in force, not what has been enjoined.
• FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) — federal law giving parents and eligible students rights over education records, including the right to inspect, correct, and control disclosure.
• COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) — federal law about collecting personal information from children under 13. In school deployments the district typically acts as the parent’s agent for consent.
• Texas Education Code 32.151–32.156 — framework for student data agreements between districts and online service providers.

There are even places for Family Access Tools:

A Support Community Forum

I also wondered, “What if I added a support forum?” That was an adventure in itself, and adding OAuth authentication resulted in delving into some technical stuff I had never explored. Microsoft authentication is still a mystery to me, but I was able to gut through getting Google oAuth set up:

Fortunately, you can also simply create an account using an email address and a password. One of the cool aspects? Adding Markdown support for forum posts was a cinch, as you can see below:

Please do give this a spin. It’s my first attempt at a serious project, but I can’t help but wonder, “What would DrawSplat look like as a Google Chrome extension? Or Mozilla Firefox add-on?”