Am I the only one, until recently, who had never heard of Jamboard before?

I have a morning routine where I listen to my podcast lists as I get ready for work in the morning.  In one of the podcasts, Jamboard was brought up. After listening a bit to what it was, I decided to give it a try with my students.

Before I get into what I did and how I did it, let me backtrack a bit and explain what it is.  Jamboard is a collaborative, interactive whiteboard.  It allows you to create "jams" by using pen tools, uploading images, uploading files from your personal Google Drive, create sticky notes, use artificial intelligence to identify what you're trying to draw and upload it, so much! Also, you don't need the fancy, expensive Jamboard TV thingie to use it.  The app is free and get this:  it's already part of the Google Apps For Education.  

Meaning, my students and I can access the desktop version of Jamboard right from our Google account.  It's a tad bit different on the computer than the iPad, but it's accessible!

So anyway, I decided to use it today for the first time with my students.  The goal was to introduce Jamboard and its functions to them and then use it to give feedback about my class for the year.  As you may or may not know, I have 5 iPads that I won through a grant which I share with my other hours.  I walked students step-by-step through logging in via the iPad Jamboard app, to joining my "jam."  After tinkering with it for a bit, I had them each give feedback about my class for the year.  I displayed a slide with all the different things we did during the year and asked them to create a frame that looked like (or had a similar concept) to this:

                           

When they were finished, I had a collection of the whole class's feedback that I could look at and consider.  Doing it this way versus a Google Form was also helpful because I could see in real time if they understood the directions.  I could peruse through their frames as they wrote and clarify directions for those who didn't quite understand them.  

All in all, I enjoyed trying it out and would love to incorporate this later in my class.  It's such a great collaboration tool and would like to see my students using this for presentations.  Having the iPad and Apple Pencil makes it much more convenient to use, so why not?

Things You Should Know:

Jamboard Vocab:

1. Jam:  a board where people can collaborate.  Contains one or more frames.  Think of it as a slide deck.
2. Frame:  similar to a slide.  It's basically a "page" of your board.

Tips:

• Tinker with Jamboard ahead of time! The first time I ever used it, I realized my IT department had not given full access to the app, and sharing boards was deactivated.  It wasn't until a bit of research that I found this out, so check with your IT people first to make sure it's activated for both you AND your students! Also, ask someone to join one of your jams to see how collaboration works.
• Create slides ahead of time for your first time using it with your students and have their names on their slides ahead of time! This will minimize multiple students "claiming" the same frame.
• Make sure you explain to your students to be in their own Google profile! For our iPads, we share them with other hours, so we found out that one of our students accidentally joined my jam on another student's profile.  
• Go through each tool in the toolbar together.  Show the different things each tool offers, then allow them to tinker with that tool for a minute before moving on to the next tool. 

Have you tried Jamboard? If so, I'd love to hear how it's being used in your classroom!