One of the best features about Jamboard is the ability for students to annotate right on the screen. Within Jamboard students have access to a pen tool. This allows students to write, diagram, highlight, or even draw on different images or graphics that you can insert right into the Jam. This provides students the opportunity to solve different math problems, annotate a given text, label different diagrams, or even add their own drawings to a given prompt. Using this tool we are giving students the opportunity to show their thinking and make connections to learning taking place. As a teacher one of the greatest features of this activity is it very low prep. All you need to do is simply add a photo by selecting the photo icon located in the Toolbar, or create an image as a background by clicking on the "set background" option at the top of the screen. Once your image is inserted you can assign to students directly through Google Classroom by "making a copy for each student" so they can complete independently, or possibly by giving students editing rights so that it can be a tool for a class discussion or small group work.
What makes this opportunity even better is it is can be paired with Screencastify to record student thinking in real time. Using the Screencastify extension students can screen record their annotations and verbally provide their thinking as they are annotating in real time. This is an amazing opportunity for you to be able to hear from each student individually without being pulled in a bunch of different directions at one time. By hearing from each student and seeing their thinking in real time you are able to determine where misconceptions may be happening as well as what other support would be beneficial to help each individual student move forward in their learning.
For some students thoughts and new learning is better captured through images. That is where the idea of Sketchnoting could be very beneficial for some students. Sketchnoting is a visual note-taking strategy that allows students to doodle their notes which in turn helps them to deepen their understanding of a concept. Rather than writing words to capture notes during a lecture, students can doodle images that support the concepts and ideas that are being presented within a lecture. The pen feature within Jamboard provides students with a virtual opportunity to be able to capture those sketches as well as their learning. The best part is they can then share those sketches with you directly through Google. This again, provides another opportunity for you to be able to get a look at student understanding and connections, while still providing students an opportunity to have fun and get creative with new information that is being presented to them.