Jamboard is a collaborative online whiteboard space with simple, easy-to-use tools. You can access Jamboard by going to jamboard.google.com. I am a little slow to jump on the Jamboard train, but now that I’ve played around, I see so much potential! I’d love to share a couple of templates I created as I explored the features Jamboard offers and then share some tips and tricks I discovered along the way to help you create your own!

Let’s start by looking at some example templates I made. I made these particular templates to show off some cool things that Jamboard can do!

Kindness Challenge

This Template allows all of your students to type on ONE Jam at the same time. To edit the sticky notes, all students do is click on a sticky note, click on the three dots that pop up in the top right corner, and choose edit. So easy! Challenge your class to share kindness with others. Take just a couple of minutes out of class time at the beginning or end of your day to ask for students to share some acts of kindness. Offer a prize for when the class collaboratively fills the entire Jam with acts of kindness! Click here to grab a copy of the Classroom Kindness Challenge Template.

Scratch and Win!

This template is like an online version of a Scratch Off! Students (or you) choose the eraser and erase the circles to reveal the prize hidden underneath. Here’s how it works: In a Jamboard, the pen is ALWAYS on top of everything else. So, there are hidden sticky notes behind each “scratch off” area. With the selection tool, simply grab a sticky note and pull it out from behind the “scratch off” area. Change the sticky to be the prize you want to offer to students, then slide it back behind the “scratch off” area made of pen. Once you’ve changed all the sticky notes to be prizes, you can have students “scratch off” their prize by picking one circle and erasing it to reveal their prize! If you have face-to-face students, this could be REALLY fun projected on your touch screen board (Promethean Panel or SmartBoard) so that student can really get that feeling of “scratching off” by going up to the board and erasing with a finger. Super fun! Click here to grab a copy of this Scatch and Win Jamboard Template.

Mystery Reveal

With this Jamboard Mystery Reveal Template, you type in your questions and answers with your content, then students try to answer and can self-check by pulling the answers out of thin air! AMAZING! Here’s how it works – I drew all over the bottom half of the workspace with WHITE PEN, and in Jamboard all penmarks are always ON TOP of everything else. So… when you have the pointer tool selected, you can magically pull the answer up from the bottom! Note: Jamboard will not let you move penmarks once they are made. So that white pen area won’t move, only the items you’ve hidden behind it. To use this template, write in your questions, reveal the answer sticky notes, write in the answers, and then re-hide the answers. So much fun the first time you magically reveal the answer to show them!!! Grab a copy of the Jamboard Mystery Reveal Template to edit with your content HERE.

Tips and Tricks to Make YOUR OWN!

Create Jamboard backgrounds that are immovable (and the fonts and colors you want if you like things to be o-so-cute like me!). The background size is the same as a regular google slide – widescreen or 16:9. Create the background of your dreams in Google Slides, then go to Download, .png. Then switch over to Jamboard, choose Set Background, Image, and drag in your created background!

Step by step explanation in the short video below:

Want your colors to really go together and look great? Jamboard only has a few colors to use for sticky notes and pens. To make everything match beautifully, when you are creating your backgrounds in Google Slides, you can change the color of objects by clicking on the paint can (or border, or font) and then instead of selecting one of Google’s provided color choices, click on “custom” and paste in the color code of the exact Google Jamboard color you are hoping to match. Here is a graphic that provides the color codes for each color.

Here is a link to the google slide of the graphic above so that you can copy and paste those codes – or even create your background on another slide in the same template. All of those jamboard colors are already saved as custom colors in this template! I also include a couple of example Jamboard Background templates that you can edit and make your own! Click here for a copy of that template.

Don’t want to have to create your own background… but still want better choices than what Jamboard offers?? Go to Canva.com and search for “Online Whiteboard” – YA’LL! TONS of awesome, FREE templates come up that you can edit, download and use within your Jams! Did I mention FREE! Nice!

How do I share Jamboards with my students?

For face-to-face students without devices, you could project any template on your touch screen board (Promethean Panel or SmartBoard) so students can take turns revealing answers, typing acts of kindness, scratching off prizes, or whatever amazing idea YOU have. This does NOT require you to share an editing code with students as you are just sharing your screen and allowing them to edit as you. For students connecting to class virtually or any student with a device that you want to complete the assignment on their own computers, you simply click the share button (just like you would with Google Slides or Docs). If you want ALL students to have access to edit and move things around, change the share setting to Anyone with the Link can Edit.

If you want each student to have their own seperate copy, go up to the address bar of your Jamboard and delete everything at the back end until you get to a backslash. Type the word “copy” (no quotation marks) and hit enter. This will provide you with a link you can share with students so that each student will get their own individual copy of the Jamboard to edit and change individually.

Other great Jamboard Resources

There are so many aweseom educactors sharing great Jamboard tips, tricks, and free resources. Search twitter for Jamboard… people are sharing amazing resources and tips on how they are using this great tool in the classroom!

I love this picture of the day resource from @venezia_megan:

Here’s a link to make a copy of Megan’s Picture of the Day Template

@CandyTechIdeas share this awesome wakelet FULL of resources, activities, and lesson ideas using Jamboard!