Drawing Widget

Not available yet. Drawing isn't in the studio's widget list right now: we're holding it back until you can see and grade what learners draw. A lesson that already has one keeps working — see When a widget is greyed out.

Use the drawing widget when the answer can't be typed — a labeled diagram, a sketched map, a worked math problem, an annotated passage. Learners draw directly on a canvas using a pen, highlighter, or eraser.

Berdee doesn't grade drawings yet, and you can't see what learners drew yet. For now, the drawing widget works best for practice a learner does in the moment, like tracing letters, sketching to think something through, or marking up a picture. To have learners draw a shape that Berdee checks (a triangle, a rectangle with 2 long sides and 2 short ones), use dot paper instead. To trace and write numerals, use number tracing instead: it checks the strokes, and you see what each learner wrote. See Scoring and what you can see before you add one to a lesson you assign.

Select the drawing widget on the canvas and click the floating ⚙ Configure button to open its setup dialog. The prompt, background, drawing tools, and scoring controls all live there. See Configuring a Drawing for a full walkthrough.

What learners see

• A canvas with a prompt at the top (set by you).
• A toolbar with pen, highlighter, eraser, undo, redo, and clear, directly under the prompt. The studio canvas shows the toolbar band in the same place, so the drawing area you size is the drawing area learners get.
• The eraser removes a whole stroke with one tap. Undo takes back the last change, whether that was a stroke, an erase, or Clear, so a learner who clears by accident can get their drawing back.
• Color swatches and stroke-width options (if you've enabled them).
• A text alternative field beneath the canvas — learners who can't draw (screen readers, assistive tech) can type a description of their answer instead.

After the learner submits the scene, the canvas locks and shows Submitted, with their drawing kept on screen.

Background options

Choose one background for the canvas:

• Blank — an empty white surface. Good for free sketches, diagrams from memory, or any open-ended task.
• Grid — choose Graph paper for plotting and math work, or Lined for handwriting and note-taking.
• Image — upload a map, diagram, or worksheet as a base layer. Learners draw over it. Good for annotation and labeling tasks. The whole picture is shown, fitted inside the drawing area without cropping or stretching, and the studio canvas and the Configure preview show it the same way.

Tool controls

In the Configure dialog you can restrict the drawing tools learners see:

• Color palette — leave Offer every color on to give learners all seven colors (black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple), or turn it off and untick the ones you don't want so everyone works from the same colors.
• Stroke widths — leave Allow all widths on, or restrict to a subset of Thin / Medium / Thick.
• Highlighter — turn on to add a highlighter option to the toolbar alongside the pen.
• Max strokes — an optional hard cap on how many strokes a submission can contain.

Scoring and what you can see

Drawings have no automatic scoring, because strokes don't map to a single right answer. Berdee doesn't have a screen for grading them yourself yet, either.

When a learner submits, Berdee saves their drawing and anything they typed in the description box. You can't open or view them anywhere in Berdee yet. A student's attempt page lists the drawing as a row, but not what they drew.

A drawing is pending until it can be graded, and pending counts for nothing: it is 0 of 0 in the learner's lesson score, answered or skipped, whatever its Points say. The score learners see when they finish, the one on your student and lesson pages, and the learner's own assignment list all agree on that.

Switch Scoring off on a drawing anyway. While it's on, the drawing never counts as a correct answer, so a path or condition that needs every answer right can't be met while it's in the scene. To turn it off, open ⚙ Configure and switch off Scoring.

Scoring settings

These are in the Configure dialog. None of them leads to a grade you can give yet.

• Scoring — on by default. Switch it off for now (see above).
• Points — how much the drawing is worth. It has no effect while Scoring is off.
• Group — optional grouping for custom grading flows.

Accessibility

The text-alternative field (Describe your answer) appears below every drawing canvas at runtime. Learners using assistive technology can type their response there instead of drawing. Berdee saves the description with the drawing, but like the drawing, you can't see it in Berdee yet.

Strong use cases

These work today as practice the learner does inside the lesson. Until you can see drawings, don't rely on one for work you need to check.

• Labeled diagrams: "Label the parts of the plant cell." Upload a cell image as the background; learners draw lines and write labels.
• Show your work: "Solve this equation. Show all your steps." Grid background, unrestricted stroke width.
• Map annotation: "Draw the route the explorers took." Upload a map image.
• Free sketching: "Draw what you think a particle of water looks like at 100°C."
• Handwriting practice: Lined background, restricted to pen and one stroke width.

Great pairings with other widgets

• Pair with text to deliver instructions or context above the canvas.
• Pair with image when the source material sits next to the drawing task.
• Pair with audio to narrate the drawing prompt aloud.
• Pair with submit button to separate the "I'm done" moment from auto-completion.

Related

• Configuring a Drawing — set up the prompt, background, and tool options in the Configure dialog.
• Submit Button — controls when a scene's answers are submitted, including drawings.
• Choose the Right Widget — when to reach for drawing vs other input types.