Skip to content

For teaching

Recipes for the classroom, the online lesson and the tutorial video. Each one uses only what is on the ring and two or three keys.

Before the lesson

  • Tick Start Am_sketch when I sign in when you install, so the keys always work.
  • Untick Show Quick help when the app starts once you know your way round (Preferences).
  • On a two-screen setup, untick the screen the class does not see in Preferences → Screens, so Am_sketch stays off your notes.

Correct: mark a worksheet

A worksheet: a wrong answer circled in red with the right one beside it, and two spellings corrected above the line.

  1. Open the student's PDF, or any app the work is in.
  2. Click the Brush; pick red on the hue ring.
  3. Circle the mistake and write the correction beside it. A pen gives you the feel of a real red pen; with a mouse, Pen or Brush Pen still taper.
  4. Missed? Ctrl+Shift+Z.
  5. Capture the page to send back, then Ctrl+Shift+X for the next one.

Highlight: read a text together

A textbook page with key phrases highlighted in yellow.

  1. Click Highlight; right-click it to set a light colour around 50 %.
  2. Go over the key phrases while you read. Overlaps stay even and the words stay readable.
  3. Underline in pen on top — highlights always sit behind ink.

Encourage: ticks, stars and a note

The worksheet with green ticks, a box round a right answer, a star and a typed note.

  1. Pick green on the ring and tick the right answers with the Brush.
  2. Hold the Shape slot → Square to box a whole answer.
  3. Click Text, click beside the name, and type Great effort! — finish with Enter on the numeric keypad.
  4. Changed your mind? Select the box or the note with Selection and move, recolour or delete it. Shapes and text stay editable.

Explain: measure a diagram

A right triangle on a slide: the missing side drawn along the ruler, the angle read as 36.9°, and the working beside it.

  1. Hold the Measurement slot → Ruler. Drag its ends onto the side of the diagram and read the length aloud.
  2. With the Brush, draw the missing side along the ruler's edge — it snaps straight.
  3. Hold Measurement → Angle; put the corner on the vertex and swing the arms onto the sides. The class sees the angle measured.
  4. Write the working beside it with the Brush, or type it with Text.

A whiteboard on demand

  1. Right-click Trace paper: set the colour to white (or chalkboard green) and Opacity to 100 %.
  2. Click Trace paper — a clean page over whatever you were showing.
  3. Work the problem. Click Trace paper again to take the page away: the slide is still there underneath — and your working stays on top of it until you clear it.

Live demonstration

Pointing at a live screen — software, a game, a simulation — you never want to stop and wipe.

  1. Preferences → General → Strokes fade after: 6 seconds.
  2. Circle, arrow and underline as you talk. Every mark fades away by itself.
  3. Need to click into the program? Ctrl+Shift+C passes the mouse through; press it again to draw.
  4. Set the fade back to Off afterwards.

Present: recolour, then send the board home

The annotated slide, with the notification that the screenshot was copied to the clipboard.

  1. Use Selection round a stroke and Change colour to make one part stand out.
  2. Keep the class's suggestions on a new layer — hide it to compare, delete it to start over.
  3. Right-click Capture → Clipboard. Click Capture, drag round the board, and paste it into the class chat or the notes.

Online lessons and recordings

  • Share your whole screen (not a single window) in the video call or the recorder: Am_sketch draws above the windows, so a single-window share does not include it.
  • Keep a short fade on for walkthroughs, and pass the mouse through with Ctrl+Shift+C whenever you need to click.