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What is Zoom Whiteboard and How to Use it to Teach?
As the learning environment and approaches evolve, so do educators' learning tools and technology. We’ve come a long way from the time when teachers used chalkboards. They then shifted to dry-erase boards, and now, they use smartboard devices or virtual whiteboards. Whiteboards allow educators to teach in an effective and visually engaging manner no matter where they teach from.
One such incredible, easy-to-use, effective and intuitive whiteboard is the Zoom whiteboard. It is a smart visual collaboration solution built within the Zoom platform. This solves the problem of using an additional tech app for letting students directly interact with study material. The Zoom whiteboard helps educators to write notes, share ideas, visually break down concepts and allows students to work together.
Not only that, it enables educators to do so much more:
1. Add text, sticky notes, shapes, images, and free-hand drawings in different colors and sizes.
2. Save and share whiteboards with students, assign roles and give them permission to view, comment, or edit.
3. Control access by locking and unlocking a whiteboard.
4. Access whiteboards within or outside of Zoom meetings.
5. Easily open it on a smartboard device and use a digital pen to teach in the classroom, enhancing the students' overall experience.
6. The Zoom whiteboard works like an infinite canvas. So, you can fit all your information on one board without running out of room.
7. You can use the Zoom whiteboard on various devices, like your laptop, tablet, or even your phone.
How to Use the Zoom Whiteboard to Teach?
If you’re already using Zoom to host meetings and classes, it’ll be super easy for you to use the whiteboard. Since the feature is a part of all Zoom accounts, you won’t have to install any other third-party plugins, purchases, or downloads.
Zoom whiteboard works as a black canvas, providing endless opportunities for teaching and learning alike. Unlike traditional classroom teaching, this feature empowers educators to teach in the most fun and interactive ways possible. Here are a few ways you can try out too:
1. Teach both in-person and remote students without any hassle. Illustrate a concept or write notes like you would on a traditional blackboard; all the students can see them simultaneously. You can invite in-person students to add their ideas to the board and ask students at the Zoom meeting to participate altogether.
2. Do you like to stay ahead of time? Zoom whiteboard enables you to prepare for your lessons beforehand. Add your plan to the board, including images, references, and text you would like your students to read and comment on. You can simply share the whiteboard with students when it's time for the lesson.
3. Easily encourage students to collaborate on projects in real time. Best part? They can even use whiteboards and collaborate while being in break-out rooms. Students can put their thoughts or ideas on the whiteboard and save them as images. Later, they can share the image with the class to discuss their findings.
4. Zoom whiteboard lets you create collaborative lessons that include drawing tools and shapes. Allow students to work together to build a storyboard for a visual narrative. They could even draw a 3-D structure that can be used to make a prototype.
5. Allow students to annotate on the whiteboard. Suppose, after you finish a brainstorming session with the students, you can ask each one of them to individually use the stamp tool to star mark an idea they particularly liked.
Zoom Features That Teachers Can Utilize for Teaching
Here is a list of Zoom features that teachers can leverage in their virtual class along with the whiteboard:
1. Video Reordering: Through this feature, you can create a virtual seating chart for your students. It’s an update to the Gallery View feature. It lets you drag and drop the student video tiles in any order you want to. This order gets locked so that it doesn’t change when a new person enters or speaks in the virtual classroom.
2. Multi-spotlight: Like Zoom’s old spotlight feature, the multi-spotlight feature allows you to put up to nine students in the Zoom session into the “spotlight”. That way, the entire class can see them, a useful feature for group presentations.
3. Transcriptions: This feature enables you to transcribe the audio of your lessons automatically. You can download the transcription or add it as closed captioning to the video. A great way to turn your lessons into podcasts.
Start Using Zoom Whiteboard in Your Classroom
While there have been many other virtual collaboration tools with similar capabilities, Zoom whiteboard is the best so far. The best part is that it is built-in Zoom, making it easy to use and seamless in-class collaboration.
Now that you know about all the stellar features of the Zoom whiteboard, you can use it to enhance the learning experience of your students. Make your lessons interactive and engaging with the new-age tools and technology of the Zoom whiteboard.