Jamming with Jamboard in Your Higher Ed Classroom
Author: Samantha Goldman
What is Jamboard?
Collaboration is key, and finding ways to offer collaborative activities in a socially distant classroom can pose some challenges. Enter Google Jamboard. A bulletin-board type of tool that allows multiple students to share their ideas through post-its, pictures, drawings, or text on a shared canvas. Jamboard is designed to promote interaction without requiring students to even be in the same room as one another. Its freeform design allows students to place their thoughts anywhere on the screen, and even respond to others. It is technology’s answer to “write the room” activities of the past.
What are Some Ways I Can ACTUALLY USE Jamboard?
Think back to your classroom days where you would put up large sheets of butcher paper and have students wander around the room reflecting on a question related to the reading or their personal experiences by either writing their ideas on a post-it and sticking them on the paper or writing directly on the paper. THAT is what Jamboard will allow you to do digitally. Pose questions to your students related to readings, offer various scenarios, and have them provide ideas for interventions. The opportunities are truly endless. Looking for more examples? Check out this article to see how in- and pre-service teachers used Jamboard to engage in collaborative activities, whole group tasks, and exit activities during an online professional learning session.
Jamboard in Action
At the December CIDDL/CEEDAR Affinity Group “Evolving Roles and Experiences in Virtual Classroom: Implications for Teacher Preparation,” we opened with an activity in Jamboard where we asked participants to work in small-group break out rooms and answer the following question, “Where did you first look for resources, support, and direction to develop coursework/ experiences for preservice teachers in online environments?” Participants were given a few minutes to jot down their ideas on the board and share out with the group. Now, we have a great database of resources that higher ed faculty and teachers used in the form of a Jamboard. Make sure you scroll through each slide by clicking the arrows at the top. We are able to go back, reflect on the tools, and pull out highlights. The word cloud below was created using the answers from the Jamboard. Although Jamboard does not have a word cloud function built in, word clouds are a fun way to synthesize data from your collaborative Jamboards to look for commonalities and trends. Here are a few options for word cloud generators!
Application
Jamboard is an incredible tool with so many uses. We’ve outlined a few options but are curious how you would or how you have used Jamboard in your pre-service teacher classes. We’d love to hear from you. Continue the conversation in our CIDDL Community and share your ideas and communicate with fellow teacher educators.