Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Google Jamboard Software Tutorial”.
In this article, i want to show you how to use google’s free, jamboard software to easily collaborate with co-workers with fellow teachers and also with students. Many of you might already know that google is now selling their own interactive whiteboard. Basically, it’s called a jam board and it’s similar in some ways to a smart board and this board can be used for educational purposes. It can also be used in the workplace in a boardroom, etc, and so you can go out and buy a jamboard from google. You can see the cost here and then google provides for you software to use with that jamboard.
But guess what? Even? If you don’t buy the board itself, you can still use their free, jamboard software. In fact, it’s part of your g, suite or google drive account. So here i am in google drive on the web and i’ll just click here to create a new document, but in this case i don’t want to create a google doc sheet or slides presentation. I want to go down here to more and then i’ll select google jamboard when i click it opens up a canvas for me to use, and i can use this to collaborate with and share things with my students or fellow teachers or with co-workers. So the first thing i’m going to want to do is title the jam board.
I can just click here, give it a title i’ll call this introductions and first spanish words. Let’S say that this is for a spanish one class, beginning spanish, and now, with the document named, i can come down and design what i want. My students, in this case, to see now this space was designed to be used with a physical jam board that you purchase from google, but really anyone with a device that connects to the internet will be able to interact with this document.
If i want them to, i would say the first thing to think about is what do you want the background to look like when your students or coworkers see this screen? So if i click here on background you’ll notice that i can switch it to be a chalkboard, if you get sick of that look, you can switch to blue and there are some pretty useful other backgrounds as well like this one for graphs, we’ve got one full Of squares we’ve got lined paper here, we’ve got dots on the screen and we’ve just got plain white: i’m going to go with blue and let’s say my purpose here is to give my students on the first day or the first week of school, a chance to Introduce themselves to each other and then we’re also going to use some of our first spanish words now at first glance, the jamboard software might remind you a little bit of google slides, but try not to think of it. That way. This is not a traditional presentation.
Instead think of each screen that we create, as a google jamboard, think of it as being an interactive experience for your students, so i would like to put some sort of message here maybe say, welcome and give them some instructions. I can do that a couple of different ways. I could click over here on the pen and i could type out welcome now, if you don’t like the color that it comes with. If you click on the pen again, you’ll get some different colors to choose from and some different pen types we have markers. We have highlighters and brushes.
I’M gon na go with marker. Now you can see why it’s helpful to have the physical jamboard, i’m not great. At drawing words with a mouse, but your other option and i’m gon na clear the frame by clicking here is to use sticky notes. So i can click here on sticky notes and i can choose the color of the sticky note how about orange and i’ll just type welcome to spanish one and then i’ll click save, and i can click away now and that becomes a sticky note that my audience Will be able to see, as you can tell you, can make it bigger by clicking and dragging on a corner, so i can make this nice and big if i want to.
I can also rotate it with this upper left corner and, if i’d like, i can create a second sticky note and type some instructions: okay, so i’ve typed up some instructions, maybe i’ll pick a different color for this sticky note and click save and then again i Can click away from the sticky note creator and get back to the actual page, and then i can click and drag to make it bigger? If i would like now, as you can tell google jam boards, don’t have every single option that we’re used to having in google docs or in google slides. This is not meant to be a word processor or a presentation tool necessarily so i would like to be able to stretch this out a little bit differently. Maybe make the sticky note more horizontal than it is vertical things like that, but that doesn’t seem to be an option, but that’s okay. This is meant to just be an interactive experience for my students.
Okay, i’m just about done with my first jamboard screen before i go to the next one though i might want to add a picture. I can click here to add an image and just like most of the g suite tools or google drive tools, we have a few different options for pulling in images. You can upload from your computer, you can pull from google drive or from photos in your google account, but in most cases the best option is here: google image search so there i can do a search for, let’s say flag of spain and i’ll. Add that to this screen, to give it a little bit more color and personality, maybe i’ll shrink it down a little bit and place it where i want it to be on the screen.
Next, i’m going to want to go up here and click the create frame button. It looks like just a next button really, but every time you click this, it adds a new frame into your jamboard, and so what i would do is, i would make sure i have one of these for each student in my class. So normally i would end up with 30 or 35 of these. But, let’s just say it’s a small class and i have 10.
and i could at this point decorate each of these slides in some way or establish a background for each slide. Or i could leave all of the screens completely blank and allow the students to customize from scratch their own screens. One way i could customize these screens for the students would be to add a specific background. I could add an image as a background.
So, for example, i could search for a map of the world and have that be the background on which the students post the information about themselves, and i could size this the way i want it to be and place it where i want it to be. On the screen now one thing to be aware of when i share this jamboard with my students: they are very capable of moving things around, and so i may place this map here, but the students with their mouse might accidentally click and drag and move this out Of the way that is one of the things about jamboards, i do wish that teachers or the person creating the jamboard could lock certain images. Maybe there’s a way to do that that i haven’t found, but i do think that would be an improvement. But, let’s assume that i just want to leave each screen blank and let the students customize them the way they want. Maybe i’ll just move to screen number 12 and on screen 12. I want to make an activity for the students to get them. Thinking about spanish and using the spanish that they already know so maybe i’ll click here to create another sticky note list spanish words, you already know i’ll click, save and i’ll create a second sticky note list spanish words that you’ve heard but don’t understand and i’ll click Save there i’ll click away from the sticky note builder and then click and drag to place. These sticky notes where i want them to be: okay, assuming that i’m done with this jamboard, the next step. For me, as a teacher or as a team leader would be to go here and click. The share button and google gives me a couple of ways to share this jamboard.
I can add specific people in groups and that might work for you. If your students or your team is in g suite and organized properly. You might be able to just click to add your fourth period class or your department team, but otherwise you may need to go down here where it says, get link and then click change to anyone with the link and then you’ll need to decide. Do you want them to be just viewers of this content, or do you want them to become editors of the content and make sure you’ve copied the link, and then you can click done, and then you can simply provide that link to your students or your audience. However, you normally would maybe it’s you post it in google classroom or canvas, or maybe you post it on your website or your team slack channel or microsoft teams channel whatever it might be, but anyone with that link when they click it they’ll be taken to the Jamboard so now, when it’s time for class to start or for a meeting to start, you can show this first screen encourage your audience to go to the link. You can talk about the instructions and then each individual that has access to the board will be able to add their own sticky notes, they’ll, be able to add their own images and as the teacher as you’re doing this as you’re going from slide to slide.
There is a nice little tool that you have, and that is this laser pointer. If you click on the laser button, it lets you circle certain things or point out certain things, and you can see what the laser pointer does when you release the mouse or if you hold still too long, the laser pointer starts to erase itself, but it’s a Great way to draw students attention to a particular area, and then it disappears. Of course, students could use the markers and the pens to draw things themselves. If they make a mistake, they can use this eraser to remove the mistake.
They also have an undo button as well here in the upper left, so think of a jam board as a collaborative space in which you and your team or you and your students can post information and share information with each other. It’S also great for some interactive activities like this one. Each student on their own device could go in and type examples of words that they already know and then drag and put those words on the side of the screen where they belong as you’re using the jamboard software. You can also click here at the top.
Instead of just clicking the left or right arrow several times, you can click here in the center at the top, and that way you can more quickly switch to a previous screen as you’re working on a screen. If you want to start over, you can just click clear frame and it clears off that frame only and leaves the other frames or screens completely intact when you’re done using this jamboard with your students or your team, you can click here on these three dots in The upper right and you can download the jamboard as a pdf or save it as an image that way. You’Ll have a record of the contributions of the different students and of the ideas that were generated now, if you’re going to use this same jam board with multiple groups of students or with multiple teams you may want to before you actually use it. You may want to click here and make a copy, so this could be for my second period, spanish class and then i’ll make another copy for third period and fourth period etc, and that way they’ll be kept separate and each class can have their own collaborative experience With this google jamboard, so i hope you can see some potential in ways you could use the free google jamboard software in your school or business thanks for watching. I hope you found this tutorial to be helpful.
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