News

Prologue: Imagine the scene

You’re in a meeting or class. The facilitator says you have 10 minutes to work in a group and sends you a link to an online whiteboard. You open the whiteboard and feel somewhat lost. There’s a lot of information on the board and you’re not sure what you need to do. You begin to feel frustrated with the tech, or your own skills, or both.

What was missing in this scenario?

When the structure, instructions and scaffolding are not devised thoughtfully, complex online whiteboards (e.g. Miro and MS Whiteboard) can quickly become demotivating or confusing to learners. To enable students to experience engaging and collaborative learning in online whiteboards, we need to set the stage with intentional design, direction and rehearsal.

Act 1: Stage design

What scenery and props create the space for your students to do their best work?

An infinite empty whiteboard is daunting and pulls focus from your activity aims. Providing students with templates and tools reduces their cognitive load, making a vast whiteboard space more manageable. Explore the selection of templates in Miro and MS Whiteboard.

Online whiteboard templates can also support students in developing their collaboration skills. You can use templates to model their own expert processes for novice students, allowing students to concentrate on the challenges of working as a group. Templates also give students a concrete representation and record of their progress and teamwork.

Tips

  • Conduct a brief tour of the key areas of the online whiteboard
  • Limit the number of tools students need to use for an activity
  • Organise activities in a logical order (e.g. left to right)

Act 2: Stage direction

What’s your director’s vision for the movement and pace of the activity?

Clear instructions are key to achieving the aims of an online whiteboard activity. Be explicit about exactly what you expect students to do and achieve by using the whiteboard. This could include giving students defined roles for group work and regular feedback to orientate them as they complete an activity.

Intentional pace and timing help to maintain students’ engagement in the collaborative activity. To reduce the feeling of overwhelm, give space for individual reading and preparation, and break down the activity into chunks with generous and explicit timing. This is especially important if students are using the whiteboard asynchronously or in a hybrid environment.

Tips

  • Give both verbal and written instructions before sharing a whiteboard so you have your students’ full attention
  • Make space for students to ask questions and get help
  • Set a realistic deadline and adjust as you go

Act 3: Rehearsal

How much rehearsal will your students require to feel comfortable and creative?

Some online whiteboards are complex and can take practice for users to feel confident enough to navigate and contribute to effectively. If you plan to use an online whiteboard over a series of tutorials, build a more structured scaffolding into the initial sessions that you can remove gradually as students gain trust and learn to collaborate independently.

For quick one-off activities with no rehearsal opportunities, students will need to improvise to some extent. To support them, ensure the stage design and direction is simple and clear, and account for some tech problems and disorientation in the set up.

Tips

  • Design an initial simple and motivating activity to complete as a low-stakes practice or ice-breaker
  • Integrate the online whiteboard into regular activities so students gain confidence and comfort in participation
  • Reduce explicit scaffolding gradually and allow students more creative freedom

Epilogue

At this point, the theatre metaphor has been pushed to its limit. Learning is not a performance and even rehearsal cannot guarantee the smooth course of an activity or lesson. However, thinking of an online whiteboard activity like a theatre production is a useful frame for remembering these three relevant learning and teaching strategies.

If you’ve tried online whiteboards before but didn’t enjoy the experience, give some of these strategies a go. And if you’ve never tried an online whiteboard before, why not plan your directorial debut?

Break a leg!

Further reading

Join the discussion