When I tell teachers I run interactive digital lessons with 45 Grade 8 students in a classroom that loses power an average of twice a week, they look at me the way people look at magic tricks — slightly suspicious, quietly impressed. It is not magic. It is a very good free tool and a philosophy I borrowed from a retired teacher who once told me: "The medium is not the message. You are the message."

The Problem With Traditional Whiteboards

A traditional whiteboard is fine. But it has a fundamental limitation: only one person can write on it at a time. After one particularly good brainstorming session on the themes in Noli Me Tangere, I watched a student frantically photographing the whiteboard before I erased it. That blurry photograph became the group's study reference for the quarter exam. I felt like I had let them down.

Discovering the Digital Whiteboard

DepEd Me's Interactive Whiteboard is a browser-based canvas — no installation required, no projector needed, no internet needed once the page loads. I open it on my phone and if I have a shared Smart TV available, I cast to it. When I do not, students take turns writing on the phone canvas, reading entries aloud and explaining their thinking to the class.

The sticky note function is the one I use most. Before any discussion, students write one word or phrase on a digital sticky note. In 30 seconds, I have 45 responses visible on one screen, groupable by theme with a drag. No paper, no tape, no "okay, read your sticky note aloud" for 45 rounds.

What Changed in My Lessons

The drawing tools let students diagram — protein synthesis, narrative arcs, map sketches — and export the canvas as an image I share in our class group chat. The lesson artifact lives beyond the classroom period. Students use it to study. Parents see what we are actually doing in class. Nothing about this requires a ₱50,000 projector. It requires a smartphone and the willingness to try.