With the announcement that Google is going to be shuttering Jamboard from October 2024 you may well be looking at Jamboard alternatives. There are a lot of online whiteboards out there right now, many of which have plenty more features than Jamboard ever did, but maybe not the sheer ease of use. For me, the ease of collaboration was the key to Jamboard, with the ability to just throw a jamboard link into an online chat or email and have students or colleagues collaborating in the same space instantly, with no requirement to log in to anything.
Some online whiteboards to consider, include:
FigJam
In many ways, FigJam seems like a decent successor to Jamboard. It also has many additional features which make it an excellent online whiteboard tool such as interactive widgets, polling, timers and more. Collaboration is easy, although the users need to sign up for a free account to use it. There are some excellent ready-made templates that are designed for classroom use. FigJam is free for educational use, but you’ll need to use a school email address and have your account approved.
Google Slides
Even with the loss of Jamboard, it would still be possible to collaborate using Google Slides. It’s not as intuitive to draw or scribble on top of the slides – maybe Google could consider adding this feature in the same way that PowerPoint has included easier pen and drawing tools. It’s easy to create text boxes and shapes to use as post-it sorting activities.
Canva Whiteboard
The ever-useful Canva website features Whiteboards alongside all its other design tools. There are many whiteboard templates to choose from, many designed for brainstorming and teamwork. Whiteboards can include freehand drawing, text and even timers. Collaboration is possible too – anyone with the link can view or edit a whiteboard depending on the setting chosen. No sign-in is required for collaborators. Canva is free, with premium features as well as a free educational version too.
Miro
Miro is a online collaborative space, designed for mind-mapping, brainstorming, making timelines and more. You can scribble freehand or add post-it notes, like you can with Jamboard, but there are many more templates and other features available such as voting and timers. Miro has a free single-user plan, plus paid plans. Teachers can also sign up for a free education plan.
LucidSpark
LucidSpark is another infinite-canvas whiteboard which allows collaboration. Boards can include sticky notes, freehand drawings, and colour-coded cursors, shapes, and lines for each collaborator. Breakout Boards allow you to split classes into smaller groups. Like some of the other jamboard alternatives, there is a free education plan available.
Kami
Kami has a range of annotation tools and multimedia features. It’ll integrate into school LMS systems such as Google Classroom, Canvas as well as Teams. You can upload and annotate over pdf files and add voice and video comments. Kami has free and paid plans for education.
Smart Lumio
Lumio is a cut-down version of Smart Notebook with additional collaboration features, and a few premium extras if you subscribe. Import the lessons you already use, combine existing resources and enhance them with customizable components including games, collaborative workspaces and much more. Then deliver them to student devices quickly and easily, all from a browser. It also integrates with Google Drive or Microsoft Teams.
Promethean Classflow
Classflow is an online version of Promethean ActivInspire. Like Smart Lumio you can create flipchart lesson files, share them with students and incorporate collaborative features such as polls and quizzes. You can integrate it with Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. There is a library of ready-made content, some free and some paid-for. Classflow itself is totally free, with all the features available without additional charges.
Prowise Presenter
Prowise Presenter is quite a powerful piece of online whiteboard software that is totally free. There’s all the tools you would need, plus many cool interactive widgets, 3D images and more.
Infinity Whiteboard
Infinity Whiteboard from Maths Universe is a rather neat infinite whiteboard with a maths focus. It provides easy access to a visualiser (if plugged in) and to screencast from another device onto the board (such as an ipad) to display student work for annotation. It’s free, and worth a look!
Whiteboard Chat
Whiteboard Chat is a virtual whiteboard with collaborative learning features. It is free to use (with paid extras), connects up to 100 people to a board simultaneously, and exports boards to PDF.
Whiteboard.fi
Whiteboard.fi is a fun simple tool that can be used really easily. Create a class and let your students join, using a link, room code or QR code. Everyone will get an individual digital whiteboard, where they can draw, write text, make notations on images, add math equations, and more! The teachers screen will then show everything the students are doing on their own screens. Whiteboard.Fi has recently been bought by Kahoot which has meant they have introduced paid plans. The free plan can be used with a maximum of 20 students, which isn’t ideal for a whole class, but good with small groups.
What next?
From Google’s press release yesterday, it sounds like they’ll be working with sites like FigJam, Miro and Lucidspark to make it easier to use these tools as part of Workspace, watch this space to see what happens over the next year.
If you have other favourite online whiteboarding tools that would make good alternatives to Google Jamboard, then let me know in the comments below!
Alternatives to Google Jamboard
The Whiteboard Blog – Education, Technology and Science CPD and Support