Newsletter 3 | Navigating the Post Jamboard Era

The Digital ATDN Newsletter introduced the activity "Search the Artifact" where readers were asked to identify artifacts in an AI-generated image. The newsletter discusses the end of Jamboard, a popular digital learning tool, and suggests alternative tools to fill the void. These alternatives include Explain Everything for interactive whiteboard capabilities, Google Slides for collaboration, Google Keep for collaborative notetaking, Slido and Ventimeter for real-time collaborative brainstorming, Canva for creative collaboration, Educayplay for teaching vocabulary, and Google Docs for document annotation. The newsletter encourages embracing change and finding the right fit for individual educational needs. Welcome to Digital ATDS Newsletter, where we elevate learning with digital resilience. Last month, we introduced a new activity called Search the Artifact. We used an AI image generator called DALI3 to create a cover image for the newsletter, and we asked our readers and listeners to identify the artifacts in the image. For this newsletter, we asked DALI3 to generate an image of a teacher leaving Jamboard behind and looking to the horizon of technology tools available throughout the landscape. Our question for today is, how many technology skills or tools can you identify from the generated image? The link to the full-resolution image is included in the newsletter and can be found in the latest news and events section at www.digital.atdnct.org. Today's newsletter is called Navigating the Post-Jamboard Era, written by Mary Kate Haverly. Navigating the Post-Jamboard Era. Unlocking the full potential of adult education requires tools that not only support but enhance collaborative learning. Jamboard with its free, digital, interactive capabilities emerged in 2017 as a beacon for educators aiming to enrich their teaching with the collective intelligence and varied experiences of their learners. Years later, as the world transitioned to remote learning during the pandemic, Jamboard's popularity skyrocketed as more and more educators were seeking interactive and collaborative learning solutions. For many of us, Jamboard's ease of use, interactive features, and integration within the Google workspace made it one of our most utilized digital learning tools. Earlier this year, Google announced that Jamboard would be discontinued at the end of 2024. This has left many educators faced with navigating this change and the inevitable impact that it will have on their teaching methodologies and student interaction. However, as educators, we are no strangers to change and embracing new challenges. The end of Jamboard will mark the end of an era, but it also signals the emergence of new options for digital collaboration and innovation in education. Here at Digital ATDN, we have curated a list of alternative tools that promise to fill the void left by Jamboard. We aim to support Connecticut's adult education community and ensure that the spirit of interactive and engaging digital learning continues to thrive, even as we bid farewell to a familiar digital friend. Most Similar Jamboard Replacement Explain Everything is an interactive whiteboard platform that supports real-time collaboration and creativity, allowing users to draw, annotate, and share ideas dynamically across devices. Explain Everything even has the beloved sticky notes and templates that have become synonymous with Jamboard. However, the one downside of Explain Everything is that it is only free for up to three projects and only one slide per project. The paid option provides greater interactive options. Best Solution for Virtual Collaboration With all the new products on the market, Google Slides continues to excel as a platform for collaboration, offering unmatched versatility and integration capabilities. As a cornerstone among the original suite of Google Workspace products, its ease of use, familiarity, and integration with the Google Workspace solidifies Google Slides as a go-to resource for educators. If you use Jamboard for brainstorming, group projects, or annotations, then Google Slides might be the best solution. Most importantly, Google Slides is still free. Best Solution for Collaborative Notetaking Google Keep, a lesser-known gem in the vast Google universe, offers an intuitive platform for collaborative notetaking. Google Keep allows users to capture ideas, create checklists, and set reminders on digital notes. Notes can also include bulleted lists, images, labels, and colors. Google Keep supports digital collaboration, making it an effective tool for managing classroom projects and brainstorming sessions. Additionally, its simplicity, mobile-friendly interface, and direct integration with Google Workspace make it an unexpectedly fitting replacement for Jamboard. Like all other Google Workspace products, Google Keep is free. Best Solution for Real-Time Collaborative Brainstorming Similar to Jamboard, tools like Slido and Ventimeter facilitate interactive engagement by allowing participants to contribute answers in real-time during a class or presentation via phone, tablet, or computer. Both Slido and Ventimeter create a collaborative learning or working environment through the use of polls and questions. Participants can view contributions through word clouds, charts, and graphs, much like Jamboard enables the visual collaboration of ideas with drawings and annotations. Further, Slido and Ventimeter offer a range of free and premium options, but most educators will find that the free option is adequate for classroom use. Best Solution for Diagrams and Creative Collaboration Canva is known for its user-friendly, graphic design platform that has recently taken the education world by storm with its free, premium options for K-12 and non-profit institutions. Like Jamboard, Canva enables users to collaborate creatively in real-time, allowing teams to design, edit, and comment on projects together. Canva also has the Collaborative Whiteboard option that offers many similarities to Jamboard. However, one striking difference between the two products is that the Canva Whiteboard is infinite in size. While this may offer vast creative space and flexibility, some users may find the limitless whiteboard size to pose challenges in terms of navigation and organization. Best Solution for Teaching Vocabulary If Jamboard was your go-to solution for teaching vocabulary, then Educayplay should be on your list of potential replacements. Educayplay offers various game formats that can be customized to review vocabulary, including quizzes, crosswords, and word searches. Like Jamboard, Educayplay can be used to facilitate collaborative learning opportunities through interactive games that can be played in groups or individually, which encourages students to engage with the material and each other. Currently, Educayplay offers a generous free account option with no limit on the number of games that can be created and up to five games shared with an LMS, for example, Google Classroom. Best Solution for Document Annotation Jamboard and Google Docs share similarities in their capacity to annotate text, albeit through slightly different functionalities, that cater to collaborative and interactive learning and working environments. On Google Docs, users can insert comments and suggestions on specific text segments, allowing for direct feedback and collaborative editing of documents. Given that Google Docs has been widely adopted and utilized by educators and students alike, there is a high likelihood that most users are already quite comfortable with its interface and functionality. Through this exploration into the world of digital collaborative tools, it is clear that while Jamboard may be exiting the classroom, the spirit of innovation and collaboration it fostered within educational environments continues to thrive. The good news is that there are several robust solutions available, each capable of stepping in to support the ways teachers and students have used Jamboard in the past. From enhancing interactive learning to facilitating real-time collaboration, these alternatives ensure that the transition from Jamboard can be as smooth as it is promising. The key is to find the right fit based on your specific educational needs and how you've integrated Jamboard into your teaching or learning process. In closing, let's raise our digital pens one last time and salute to Jamboard. Thank you for the memories, the lessons, and the gentle reminder that in education, as in life, the only constant is change. Thank you for tuning in. Please feel free to listen to our previous newsletters and TechCast episodes available in our digital A3N news and podcast channel. Take care, everybody.