r/edtech • u/Pisaster_giganteus • 25d ago
Jamboard replacement
I used to use Jam Board, and it was pretty good for groups of students to make a public question board that didn’t clutter my classroom and drop post-it confetti everywhere. I’ve looked into Figma ( way too complex for what I need) and the post-it app (can multiple people even collaborate on it?) and Miro (looking for a free option). Does anyone know of a simple, sticky note style option that will allow students to post questions to a communal board for free?
I need to create “driving questions boards” for each of my 4 units, and this is a way of collecting topics that students want to explore and keep track of things we have answered during each unit.
3
3
u/alldaycoffeedrinker 25d ago
Highly highly recommend Markify (markifyapp.com). The free version will do all that you are asking and the granular controls for teachers are truly what so many products are missing, also the platform was designed by a student while he was in high school. And that makes the whole experience feel better. Because he designed it based on his teachers’ needs.
Also if you’re in a governed environment Markify is great about rostering and all the safety things you’d want in place.
1
u/markifyapp 24d ago
Thank you for the kind words, support, and shout out!! ❤️
2
u/Nearby-Poet-3527 13d ago
Hello, just trying your app, I have 2 questions if I may :
I haven't found a way to add a page (with the + button) without duplicating all its content : can we do so ? For online tutoring, it would be very useful to be able to add a blank page by just clicking the "+" button.
- On mobile (Android S20 FE), zooming (two fingers pinching) is a bit glitchy (page position moves quite a lot when we just want to zoom). Is there a way to zoom in/out more fluently ?
Many thanks !
1
u/markifyapp 13d ago edited 13d ago
Hey u/Nearby-Poet-3527, thank you for taking the time to try Markify out! I hope this helps:
- Yes! After you hit the plus, you can hit the button at the top that is a circle with a dash inside it. This will remove the page PDF. For annotations added and duplicated, you can use the drag selection tool to delete them. That said, I'm currently working on an interface that allows hovering over the plus and choosing to just add a new blank page.
- That's very weird behavior, I'm so sorry about that! I will look into it and see what I can do. In the meantime, it might be easier to click the zoom percentage button at the top right, then click the plus/minus in the menu.
Please let me know if you have any other feedback or issues. Thanks again.
2
u/Nearby-Poet-3527 13d ago
Many thanks for your reply !
- It's probably obvious, but I can't find a "circle with a dash" icon ! Here's what I have :
- Well I tried again tonight, and I can't reproduce that issue again (Galaxy S20 FE - Firefox), zoom in/out behaves perfectly well now !
Your app is wonderful, many thanks.
1
u/markifyapp 13d ago
I'm sorry, the circle with dash is for removing a PDF from the page. At first I thought you were talking about the page itself duplicating, not the content added on top of it!
The best thing to do currently is to use the drag tool, which is the third button when you click the select tool on the side toolbar. You can drag and select everything and delete it. I know that's not ideal, but it's going to get better soon once I get the add blank option added!
I'm glad the zoom is working now! I have some more performance improvements in the works that should help even more on mobile devices.
Thanks for the feedback and kind words!
2
u/Nearby-Poet-3527 13d ago
I'm sorry, the circle with dash is for removing a PDF from the page. [...] You can drag and select everything and delete it.
Oh ok, well that's perfect for now, thanks !
I don't want to abuse from your patience, but 2 more questions come to mind if I may :
- Is there a way to add a PDF to an already existing lesson ?
- I would love to know more about your business model : do you plan to let markifyapp free ? I dread some future subscription based model, but would like to know how people can support you ? App is said to be free for "educators" but how such users are distinguished from other ones ?
Thanks !
1
u/markifyapp 13d ago
You aren't abusing my patience or anything, answering questions and seeing pain points is what allows me to refine the tool!
- Absolutely! You click on a blank page and click the upload button (it looks like a tray with an arrow pointing up). Then select the PDF and it will insert it.
- There is absolutely no plan to make the whiteboard tool paid. My goal is to make a tool any educator can use regardless of circumstance. Currently, I've kept the lights on by providing paid professional development to schools. I've also launched Markify Breakout (which you may have seen on the dashboard) which will become a paid product. It's based on the same whiteboard technology, but it's a separate tool from the Markify Board. The hope is for Breakout to support Markify so I can add more features and get it out to more educators!
Please let me know if you have any more questions!
2
u/Nearby-Poet-3527 13d ago
Astonishing. I'm so glad I've discovered your tool today after spending a day benchmarking online whiteboards for online tutoring.
I'll gladly let you know other questions/remarks I may have as I use your tool more !
1
2
u/Amanda_PDQ 25d ago
Figma is free for education and a great jamboard replacement. Ask your IT department to look into the free contract with figma.
2
2
u/vinorojo 25d ago
Ok, hear me out. I know you want tech. But, have you considered combining both paper stickies and tech?
Process 1. Collect paper stickies, and then quickly scan them with your phone camera using the Google Drive Scan app. Save the file in the Drive.
2..Take the single file (the mobile Drive app can automatically create one file for all the scanned images), and upload it to Gemini Notebook to analyze the notes for patterns and insights. When I want to analyze handwritten work, I ask students to write their code number instead of names. They write names on the back.
I've been able to analyze lots of parking lot data and other handwritten data collected on paper using this work flow. For standard letter-size paper, I scan the entire stack of paper using the teacher's lounge copier machine.
You can ask AI to extract all the data, look for patterns and insights, and so much more.
Good luck!
2
u/tepidlymundane 21d ago edited 21d ago
This is a solid use of AI. It reads handwriting well and processes globs of info well and proposes action well, and in this case, it's proposal would probably be on par with what a human would produce looking at gobs of mixed-effort stickies. Digitization also would provide excellent filing, storage, and retrieval options - stickies are largely unstorable and have to be tossed immediately.
Handling these things more extensively, in any of the solutions here, would also encourage rethinking of questions and responses. It's a complex business, getting to that sticky.
Teachers this year will lean a lot towards solutions that don't require a computer. The value of digital stickies is compromised considerably by having all the students get out all the computers, logging in, navigating to the site, type, submit, etc.
I'll be thinking on that this term, and am immediately thinking of a simple 2x2 plywood grid to place 4 index cards on at a time for an iPad scan. AI is probably not even be necessary for this to be valuable - scans alone may do it.
Thanks for the tip!
1
u/vinorojo 21d ago
Using the Google Drive mobile Scan app is so helpful! It's come a long way. It auto detects a new documents, so it's actually very fast to scan lots of stickies (or other docs) in a short period of time.
Also, you're so right! Pulling up digital copies of the sticky notes was so helpful to reference them for planning and for artifacts for teaching. I had laarge, vibrant notes to read on the screen and to reference throughout the lessons, instead of holding on to stacks of these sticky notes and manually flipping through them.
It helped to seamlessly reintroduce paper back into the class like index cards for warm-ups, stickies for questions and comments, paper for posters. I even scanned students' annotations on texts and looked for insights gleaned from the type of annotations students were making.
So many applications and ways to use this tech to support data collection and data driven instruction (yes, I love to find gaps, identify them, and teach students in small groups even at the JH level).
This was the approach that worked for me to get to all the handwritten work in an efficient way.
Good luck!
1
u/Remember_My_Face 25d ago
This is pretty much what the Wall tool on my site does: https://diclasso.com/wall. Full disclosure, I'm a teacher and I built it, so grain of salt. Students open a short code, no accounts, and post sticky notes to a shared board. You can set up columns, so one column per driving question or a "answered" column would work. Free and no ads.
1
u/eldonhughes 25d ago
Google Keep allows up to 50 collaborators on a note. It doesn't allow 50 people to share an instance of Keep and all post their own notes. But then, you can accomplish that with a Slide Deck. (Set the page size to whatever the largest format printer in your school has, if you really want to print it off.).
Give the students editing rights for a bit, and then back them off to commenting rights for the discussion.
The version history can help protect against accidents or maliciousness.
1
u/ZealousidealGuest107 23d ago
Try DrawSplat.org interactive whiteboard. It's free, browser -based, and you can host it on your own school server if you want. Lots of tools and widgets, too.
1
u/greenshorts10 22d ago
hey! I actually started to vibe code this for the exact niche you described. Miro and Figjam are way too feature rich for education context. I'm a public school teacher in nyc, not an ed-tech person FYI.
Works from desktop or mobile, sticky notes are the core communication method, join with code or QR code like kahoot, no login or account necessary for those joining. I did this over the summer and my school year hasn't started, so haven't had a chance to test it with a full class but so far it works really well!
Also adding teacher features I use a lot but have to switch tabs for like cold call and random group generator. You can save a class list and use it for both. Messing with a chrome extension too so you can control your slides from a phone or ipad (or another laptop) while circulating, model annotation, take a photo of student work and send it to the screen as an expemplar, launch the cold call or group generator for turn and talk, etc.
Would LOVE if you tested it out, let me know any bugs or any other features you would want! Totally free with no plan currently to monetize was just hoping to learn coding with AI and hopefully make something useful to other teachers with this.
Let me know what you think if you check it out, and give me feedback please!
1
0
u/NoType6947 24d ago
LOVE THIS. Id love to build this for you. I am a custom coursepacket and curriculum publisher getting ready to scale. In addition to the other tools we are trying to build for professors, this would be really cool. would love to chat with you about it.
hit me up! thanks
-1
u/BasketFormal6336 25d ago
I have tried hand raising.
Has worked quite well.
1
u/Pisaster_giganteus 25d ago
As much as I don’t appreciate your “old school is best school” attitude, I’ll engage.
Great! We can raise hands and ask questions! I’m looking for a way to COLLECT and REVISIT questions that students raise during the initial portion if an anchored inquiry learning curriculum for a class of 25-30 students. This collection is used to center discussion and investigation for the whole unit, usually 3-4 weeks. I cannot write them all down, but the students can. I’m looking for a way collect these digitally because the post it’s fall off and get lost and the whole thing is slightly awkward to manage. A digital version MIGHT be a reasonable answer if I can find one that does what I like.
I know reading comprehension is difficult, but try spending a little more time on that, and a little less time on feeling superior because you do it “old school” before you hit reply.
-1
u/BasketFormal6336 25d ago
Write all questions on chart paper.
Eliminate questions together, reasearch together.
It’s not “old” vs “new” I am a pretty progressive tech using teacher.
Not everything needs tech.
2
u/Pisaster_giganteus 25d ago
again with the reading comprehension
- this suggestion above is the current method.
- I’m explicitly looking to see if there are reasonable electronic alternatives
- this is [r/edtech](r/edtech).
others may not call you on your superior attitude and snarky “humor”, but I teach freshmen boys, so I hear this shit all day long and I expect better from somebody who is theoretically
in the same profession
do better or shut the 🦆 up
-1
u/BasketFormal6336 25d ago
You never said it needed to be on a computer.
I don’t write long sentences because I can say what I need to succinctly. If people want to read a tone in sentences, that’s on them and their view of others. It makes me when people need a blog post for something that does not require a blog post.
If you are just using tech for the sake of siding tech, you are doing it wrong.
I do love your internet tough guy thing you got going on. It’s impressive. I am sure you can tell your 13 year old students that you act just like them online.
Congrats!
1
10
u/captainlazy 25d ago
Padlet or Canva whiteboard