January 11 Day 309: JamBoard vs. Limnu

I started the quarter using Google JamBoard because it was the technology the students used in the first quarter of this two quarter sequence. I’ve used it for two days and I have a few complaints.

1. I can only select one object at a time to copy/move/resize.
2. The size of the images pasted to the whiteboard is out of synch. When I try to annotate images added by students from my iPad, my writing/highlights/arrows don’t line up with the images on the computer screen.
3. When resizing the view to zoom in, I accidentally resize images rather than the screen.

On the plus side, I prefer Jamboards multiple sheets to Limnu’s infinite whiteboard. It helps keep the work more organized–especially if many people are annotating simultaneously. Adding images to Jamboard seems more intuitive. There are multiple ways to copy and paste an image or a screenshot, so whatever method you regularly use will probably work.

On the other hand, I used Limnu last quarter. So I am more familiar with it. I know that I can select several objects at a time to copy/move/resize. It’s still not perfect (especially when trying to select writing that is happening over an imported pdf file) but it works more smoothly than JamBoard for sure. I have never had issues with synchronization of images and my iPad. Files of many varieties can be imported (including PDF, JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG, Word Document, Excel, and Power Point) not just images. It took me until this week to learn that you can screenshot an image and paste it into a Limnu board using the Ctrl V command on the computer. Other features I like are the ability to lead the users around the board, setting navigation pins to help others locate particular questions, and finding a person by clicking on their name.

I’ve also played with coCreate (and my favorite feature there is that it knows how to interpret typed LaTeX commands) and I recently signed up for an account with Miro. At first glance it looks like Miro has more bells and whistles than I could possibly want. Unfortunatley, I am not sure have the time to figure it all out and then introduce it to my students.

Tomorrow, I have prepared both JamBoard and Limnu versions of the class work. I don’t want to burden my student with new technology but I thought I might ask if they would be willing to give it a try. Wish me luck!