The EduGals Podcast

From The Archives: Google Slides Vs Google Jamboard: Which One Is Better? - E042

• Rachel Johnson, Katie Attwell

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In this episode, we are getting into the debate of which tool we think is better - Google Slides or Google Jamboard. We'll do comparisons of different features and give you our overall impressions and preferences for these two tools. So stay tuned and make sure you listen right to the end!

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Rachel:

Welcome to the Edge U Gals podcast. We are your co-host Rachel Johnson

Katie:

and Katie Atwell. We are here to bring you tips and tricks to help you integrate technology into your classroom.

Rachel:

In this episode, Katie and I are going to get into the debate of which one is better, Google Slides or Google Jamboard. So we're going

Katie:

to go over some of the features and give our opinion, and at the end, Stay tuned for our overall opinion of which is

Rachel:

better. Let's get started. We are gonna start off with some news and updates from the Twitterverse and beyond. So the

Katie:

first piece of news we're going to share, I know we've shared it already, but now it's actually happening, so we wanna talk about Google Meet and how to set up breakout rooms ahead of the actual meeting. So this is a wonderful option, especially if you love breakout rooms, but you want to make sure that you can choose the breakout rooms and kind of control some of those groups. So what you can now do is you can manage that in a calendar event and so, you know, set up an event. Add your students and then you are then going to be able to

Rachel:

alter that. So this one started rolling out on March the eighth for rapid release domains. It's going to start rolling out to scheduled release domains on March 22nd, so it might not be in your account yet. The last I checked, it's not in my account, so I, I can't really play around with it yet, but I'm super excited about this coming out. From the looks of the little gift that they have in their news announcement. For this, you do have to have all of your students in as participants for your event in your Google calendar. I don't know if they're gonna have to also have rsvp.

Katie:

Yes. I think the answer to that is yes, from what I've seen, but as a heads up, it's not that difficult. Just create it ahead of your class. And then give them two minutes in class to go and hit. Yes. I know a lot of people are so hesitant because of the time it takes to input names. And what if they don't just give them built in class time to rsvp? Yes. You can explain it ahead of time if you really want. I think students are fairly reasonable. It

Rachel:

looks really cool though. You're gonna be able to set up the number of rooms. You're gonna be able to set up your timers. You're gonna be able to shuffle clear. So you could do all of this in the little panel that you have in Google Calendar instead of doing it on the fly in Google

Katie:

Meet. So once your calendar event is created, what you're going to do is click on that calendar event and then there should be a little setting cogwheel that's beside the Google meet link, and then it will open up. It essentially looks like what it does in Google Meet. So it has like those same headings and whatnot along the top, and then you can type or drag names into the breakout rooms as

Rachel:

necessary. This would've come in so helpful for an event I ran last week.

Katie:

Of course. Isn't that the way

Rachel:

right now? What we need to do? So it was my coaching team, right? So there's three of us. The other two are running the show and doing all the talking in pieces because I am in the background doing, we like to call it my puppet master moves and setting up the breakout rooms, and my goodness, it takes a lot of time. Especially when you're doing breakout rooms intentionally. So this is gonna be so useful and reduce my stress anyway in terms of running those kind

Katie:

of events. Yeah, no, it's definitely, I, I think it's a great feature and I'm really glad that they're rolling this out. The

Rachel:

next one that we wanna talk about, it's kind of funny that this announcement is coming out and we're, we're recording the news for our Jamboard versus Slides episode. Mm-hmm. But anyway. Google just announced that version history is now available for Jamboard on web, so it is being ruled out as we speak for both rapid release and scheduled release domains starting on March the 12th. So it may or may not be in your account yet, but it is coming. And it's funny that we're doing this news update right now because as you're listening to our featured content, we recorded this a couple weeks ago in terms of our featured content. And so yeah, there's gonna be a little bit in there that's not quite right anymore, but that's okay.

Katie:

And we'll be sure to update our show notes to show that as well. And, um, you'll just have to see, um, how this affects maybe which one is better. True. Right? Because you know, but yes, I'm not gonna give anything away.

Rachel:

So we're just gonna leave it at that. And what we'll do is we'll include the links to both of these news announcements from Google in our show notes, and you can access our show notes for this episode@edals.com slash 42. That's EDU G A L s.com/ 42.

Katie:

And now onto our featured content.

Rachel:

This week, Katie and I are bringing you an episode all about which one is better. Google Slides or Google Board. Yes.

Katie:

So this has been a little bit contentious. I like them both, but we thought that we'd ex. Explore which one we like better because as we're using them, they're all, we're always like, Hmm, would this be better in a Google slide or would it not? So today we shall go to battle.

Rachel:

So getting ready for this episode, we decided not to share notes with each other cuz we wanted to keep it really kind of impromptu and see what we think. I have a feeling though, we probably are thinking the exact same thing. I know

Katie:

we always do, which is kind of funny, but maybe we'll

Rachel:

surprise one another. Yeah, you never know.

Katie:

Okay, so how shall we attack this? I'm thinking that maybe we talk about a feature that maybe is better in one versus the other,

Rachel:

and then kind of go from there. Yeah, that works for me. I was kind of thinking along the same lines, so off, look at that, I think.

Katie:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Amazing. So the first one that I kind of wanna talk about between slides and Jamboard has to do when you first get started with either one. So if you go to. slides.google.com or jamboard.google.com. The one that I wanna point out right here right now is that there is a template gallery in slides, but there isn't in Google Jamboard, so I think that's kind of a win for Google Slides there. I

Katie:

do agree. That being said, there are lots of Jamboard templates that are cropping up by different educators online. So in some ways you do have the option. You just have to know who to check out.

Rachel:

I do like some of these templates in here though. Like it is really a nice kind of quick way where you don't have to go and search for templates on social media or doing a Google search or anything like that. They are all right here and there's some really great. Education ones too. I was kind of poking around before we started recording here. And so things like a lesson plan or flashcards, like they have a flashcards template. So I think those are, are kind of really nice to be able to just get started quickly with something rather than having to search. That's fair. I guess the other thing about the templates too is that you can have ones for your particular school board or district, Does well, we have one in there, so you know, that's kind of nice to be able to access it right from there.

Katie:

Yeah. That way, if you're doing some board wide pd, I know that they do prefer that you use their template, so yeah, something to keep in mind. Okay, so now the first one that I kind of went to is when I am trying to personalize and add a background in slides. It's really easy to add the same background to every slide in a presentation. Whereas in Jamboard, you have to do each frame individually, so there's no like adding a background to all frames options. And that to me was a little bit annoying because it's just a few extra steps each time. Now, maybe that's minor, but when it comes down to it, sometimes a little bit of a shortcut is nice.

Rachel:

I think the other thing too, about. The backgrounds as well. And I think the reason why I would give this one to Google Slides instead of Google Jamboard is not only can you add it to all of the slides really quickly, but the resolution of the picture is so much nicer in Google Slides than it is in Jamboard. And I don't understand what's going on in Jamboard when you add that background, because whenever you do it always. Looks a little bit fuzzy.

Katie:

Yes, I was going to say, it looks a little blurry.

Rachel:

It drives me mental. I don't understand because the pictures that I'm adding as a background are very high resolution. I can add the same one in slides and the same one in Jamboard, and it looks 10 times better in Google Slides.

Katie:

Yes. So for image backgrounds, I think we have a clear winner with slides.

Rachel:

We do, and I'm, I'm kind of hopeful that. Jamboard will get better over time.

Katie:

So the next one. Now this one to me, is a win for Jamboard. I find Jamboard more easy for interaction, so the tools that they have for interaction, whether it be the sticky notes marker, et cetera, are easily accessible for students. So it's less work to be able to create something that people can

Rachel:

interact with. Yeah, I would agree with that one too. I think the toolbar and Jamboard, well, it's kind of limited in terms of what it can do in the web-based version. It still just does have those tool that are not available in Google Slides. So for example, the marker that's not available, well, I mean, you could emulate the same thing in Google Slides, but it's so much more. Kind of effort that you would have to go through, cuz you would have to go through the line tool and then select the scribble and then it just, I don't know, it looks kind of weird when you're done versus the marker tool in Jamboard is just, it's so much easier. Plus you've got the options not only for the marker, like the pen, but you have the pen, you've got the marker, you got the highlighter and the brush, and then

Katie:

the scribble tool I find like it, it's not even that great. And then, It's not

Rachel:

as easy to use. While we're kind of on the tools here too, I think the sticky note feature is absolutely amazing in Jamboard. Yes. And again, you could kind of emulate that in slides, right? By creating a text box, coloring it, and then typing text in that text box. But that's three or four different steps versus. Just clicking on a sticky note and Jamboard and typing.

Katie:

Exactly. And to me that is like far superior. It's built in.

Rachel:

It's right there. Yeah. And I've found that the sticky notes, like before, you couldn't copy and paste them to different slides, which drove me insane. But I tried it the other day and it worked. So they are making improvements to Jamboard. And yeah, like you can now copy and paste those sticky notes to different frames. So yes, sticky notes for the big win for Jamboard,

Katie:

for sure. Yes. And so sticky notes and interactive features. But then here's the downside to this interactive part of Jamboard. You really are limited to the number of active collaborators. And so if you have, like I remember doing PD and we couldn't get past like 18 or 19, maybe 20 people on

Rachel:

Jamboard. Yeah, and that's weird because if you look up any kind of documentation about Google Jamboard, it does say it can support up to 50 collaborators. I know.

Katie:

But I've never been able to get 50 collaborators

Rachel:

on a Jamboard. No. So we did a PD session last week and we had about 20 people in our session, and we had a single Jamboard. I was a little bit worried about that, but it did work with those good. I haven't tried it though with larger groups in quite a while, so maybe there's better stability now, I don't

Katie:

know. But with slides, like I've never had any issues. I never have a max out issue or people not being able to get on it. So it, it certainly is more stable in terms of the number of collaborators you can have on there. That

Rachel:

maybe kind of goes along with Google's initial reason why they created Jamboard. It wasn't for us to use it without an actual Jamboard.

Katie:

No, that's true. It was meant to be similar to a smart board, but Google with different features. So it was created for a different

Rachel:

purpose. Yeah. So I wonder if that's kind of why the stability is kind of missing a little bit, because it wasn't something that Google saw would be super valuable, right when they first started creating this software. But now that educators are using it in very different ways from probably what they ever imagined. The need is. The need is there.

Katie:

Yeah. I think because we need a W, like some teachers need a whiteboard, right? And they need it to be digital. And so this kind of popped up, you know, in the spring when we were first, you know, in remote learning and this was a tool that allowed you to do a lot of digital whiteboard features and it was approved by our board. So this is a really big go-to. And so I think that kind of spurred, Hey, look at all of this activity by education, using this tool that we didn't actually plan for this purpose, but let's go with it. So I do feel like they are improving it and, and they are picking up on what educators are doing and they're really receptive to that, which I, I like Google's

Rachel:

pretty good for that. Now I have one where I think they're kind of tied in terms of capability and that's being able to add an image into either slides or Jamboard. So going from Google Slides, you go to insert image and then you have upload from computers, search the web, your drive photos. By URL and camera, and you have the exact same options in Google Jamboard when you click on add Image. So for me, they kind of tie in this particular area. Now, one

Katie:

thing that I do think is a slides win. There's not an explore feature on Jamboard like there is in slides. And so I kind of wish they had the explore feature so that you could do a little bit of research and, and you know, put some information on a jam, kind of similar to what students would do in a slide.

Rachel:

Well, I'm just gonna put that feedback into Google right now then. Yeah, it is a shame that the Explore tool is missing. I think that would be a really great addition to Jamboard for sure, to be able to look up different articles on the web. Now, what would be really neat, and I know you can do a little bit of this with. The, like the iOS and the Android version versions of Jamboard as you can add different files from your drive and stuff like that. But wouldn't it be awesome if you had the explore tool and you had a website you wanted to grab, you could just click and drag and drop it over onto your Jamboard and then interact with it there. Yes. That would be

Katie:

great. That would be amazing. I wish they had more of that and that kind of fits with their original purpose of using it similar to a smart board. Right. So I, I'm, I'm surprised that they haven't done that. And to be honest, I really wish that they would have the same features available on the web version that they do in the iPad.

Rachel:

Definitely. I guess in terms of looking at slides versus Jamboard there, the features available in Jamboard are definitely limited compared to slides overall, but it's even more limited in Jamboard in the web-based version than it is in the mobile app versions of Jamboard. I want the ability to be able to add a file from my Google Drive into my Jamboard. Yeah. I don't wanna have to have two

Katie:

devices to be able to do that. That seems so silly.

Rachel:

And I tried it a couple weeks back, adding a file from my drive into the Jamboard and then trying to access it from the web-based version. And it just, they don't talk to each other at all. It's just basically an image and I can't do anything with it. In the web-based version. That's so interesting

Katie:

that they can't

Rachel:

get it to function the same way. I, I guess it must have something to do with the code in Chrome, right? Like it, it has to do with something where they have to code it differently for it to work in the web-based version versus a mobile version. But still it is a shame. So the

Katie:

next feature is the number of slides versus the number of frames you can

Rachel:

have. Oh yeah. That's a good one. So

Katie:

slides, you're kind of unlimited. So if you want one student to have a slide and you have a class of 30, not a problem. Jamboard, you max out at 20, so you can't, you'd have to have two separate jam boards or share a jam or a

Rachel:

frame, rather. Poor Jamboard is getting really kind of punched here. Eh? I

Katie:

know, I know. But I feel like, I feel like it will make a comeback.

Rachel:

Yeah, I agree that that one is super limiting for Jamboard, but I think, again, it kind of goes back to the purposes of the two, right? Yes. Slides is really kind of traditionally meant for presentations and the fact that we use it in so many different ways and education. One of the sayings I often hear Jake Miller say is, He talks about the adjacent possible. And so it's not only like kind of taking that tool, but then talking to other people and hearing about the ideas that they use and the different ways that things can be used. I'm, I'm not doing him any justice in terms of how I'm explaining it

Katie:

here. But that makes sense because you know, educators, were always trying to make things fit, right? We have a limited number of resources, but we want to do great things. And so we're always kind of coming up with ideas and thinking about how we can kind of shift it and change it a bit and give it a different purpose. And so it was created as more of a presentation or lesson style tool. But I think educators have really taken it to the next level by using it for a variety of different reasons. And. Collaboration, et cetera. So I feel like that's almost like just educators trying to make the most of it without having to spend any more of their own money on resources.

Rachel:

It's just, I I think when Google created these tools, they didn't think about the adjacent possible.

Katie:

No,

Rachel:

I don't think so. No. So it's, it's really cool. Like. Slides was meant as a presentation tool. So yeah, needing more than 20 slides for a presentation makes a lot of sense, whereas Google Jamboard was meant for collaboration on a physical jamboard. So do you really need more than 20 frames? You're probably only using a couple of frames if you're doing sort of these brainstorming types of sessions. So they probably thought 20 frames was more than enough. Agreed. But

Katie:

Google, if you're listening, it's not.

Rachel:

It's totally not. So going along with those lines too, Google slides. Okay. This is current for now. Like this is going to change. So depending on when you're listening to this episode, but in Google Slides, you do have version history, whereas Google Jamboard currently you do not. Although they just announced that they. Are bringing it in. So currently, if you're using it in education at the moment and something inappropriate happens, or you have kids deleting stuff in Jamboard, there's no kind of real way for you to figure out who's doing that. Whereas in slides you can see everything and you can go back to a certain point in time, or as in Jamboard, you can't currently. No, but that is going to change. So I think once they've added that feature into Jamboard, that's a tie for sure. And then

Katie:

another thing that I find is hyperlinking within a slide versus Jamboard.

Rachel:

So you can't hyperlink in Jamboard? No. I really wish that they would bring that in to Jamboard.

Katie:

I mean, it does go back to purpose. Like what is the purpose of that Jamboard? And if it's a collaborative space, do you need hyperlinks? I mean, kind of, yes. If you're brainstorming as a group and you're. All finding different websites, but maybe that's not the

Rachel:

right tool at that point. I do think that there would be value in bringing hyperlinks into Jamboard, though for sure. There's been a few instances where we've planned PD sessions and it's centered around small group collaborations, so it makes sense to use Jamboard, but then when you're like, okay, I wanna share this one resource, Then you kind of need slides to do the hyperlink or the video or like any of that sort of stuff. Right. So you could share the links in your Google meet in the chat window, but then you're, I don't know, it's, it's nice to have everything all in one spot.

Katie:

Okay. I have another one that's anti Jamboard and

Rachel:

I don't like it. I know, because you know, honestly, I really love Jamboard. I know. Same here. And it sounds like this episode, we really hate Jamboard, but we don't. We love

Katie:

it. Yeah. But it's audio. Audio files. And same with video, right? Audio and video files. It doesn't work

Rachel:

on Jamboard? No. Again, limited features. Come on, Jamboard, you need to catch up.

Katie:

Okay. But here's a good thing about the limited features. It's easy

Rachel:

to use. It is very, very easy to use. I will give you that

Katie:

one. So I have students, like I have some students who came from overseas. And they didn't even have cell phones in their country. And so coming here to Canada and getting inundated with all of this technology and all of these tools, slides is pretty complicated to learn. There's a lot of different things that you have to figure out and play with and, and you have to know where to find features, but Jamboard. Super simple.

Rachel:

Yeah. So maybe that's then a win for Jamboard, especially for the littles. Like think about the littles if you wanna do some kind of collaborative activity with them. It actually makes more sense to use Jamboard because of its simplicity.

Katie:

And it's funny because my, my daughter, Learned how to use Jamboard when, uh, they were doing some remote learning. And so she quickly created a Jamboard entitled, which pet should we get? And then had, and then had different frames saying cat or dog, and then like, animal versus animal. And I'm like, Madison, no pets for you. But, uh, no, that was kind of cute. But that goes to show like she's eight and we really limit tech time and screen time at home. So outside of school, she doesn't use a tablet or a Chromebook or any of those things. So if she can pick that up that quickly and figure out how to add images and share it with me, then um, I think that goes to show how

Rachel:

simple it is. My son is nine. He actually knows decent use of Google Slides though, but that's. Partly because he is in virtual school this year, but he still knows probably Jamboard better. Like Jamboard is super, super simple for anyone to use. Whereas with slides, he kind of keeps looking over my shoulder when I'm doing stuff in slides. So he's like, oh, I didn't know you could do that. And like gets really excited about all of these different things. But yeah, I think Jamboard definitely is. A big, big win for anyone who is teaching in the elementary panel. Yeah. Now granted then you probably have the issues of kids deleting stuff and moving stuff, and there's all that kind of digital citizenship piece that's gonna need to go along with it. But in terms of ease of use, definitely for the elementary kids.

Katie:

Okay, so here's another one. The workspace and slides is hard to get to a good size where you can actually work with it. So if you're changing the dimensions, for example, so sometimes I'll wanna change it to eight and a half by 11 and make a worksheet or you know, do something where I have more space. The zoom in and out is really awkward, whereas Jamboard, you can see it. And it's easy. I don't know. I find it easier to use a Jamboard in terms of visual

Rachel:

workspace. I would agree with that one too. So if you are, yeah, changing the page, set up on slides and then you're trying to go and look at it, a lot of people don't even know how to use the Zoom tools properly and to zoom into slides to take a look at it. So yes, jam board's definitely easier to look at, but then you can't change the dimensions of your jam.

Katie:

As I was saying that, I was like, wait a second, I shouldn't have said that. But you're right, you can't change the dimensions. Whereas I can do whatever size I want of a slide, right? Which I don't think many people know. You can actually change it, that when you're printing it out, it could be an eight and a half by 11. You can make it into a PDF or an image. Like there's so many things that you can do with slides that can't be done with

Rachel:

Jamboard. So going along with that theme too, with slides, you can add stuff to the space around the slide too, which is really, really nice. To be able to, and we did this for a session that we did with staff a couple weeks ago where we had, we used Google Slides to record everything that was being done in the breakout rooms, but then we put the breakout room number off to the side of the canvas, so we weren't taking up any part of the canvas, but then they could see which breakout room they were in. And then we also copied an image. Of the instructions and we had the instructions off to the side in the slides as well. Nice. So you can make use of that gray space around your slides, whereas you can't in Jamboard. No, definitely. And I think that's one that a lot of people don't think to use as well.

Katie:

So I like adding things to the master slide. So adding backgrounds or adding text boxes, et cetera, to the master. So that it's permanent, it's more permanently there and harder for students to delete. I

Rachel:

would agree. And the fact that you can now add that custom background to Jamboard, like it does act a little bit like a master slide and that you can't delete it unless you know that you just gotta go replace it. But that's kind of a different story. Right. But in. Slides. Yes, I agree. I love going into the master. I'll take a template and usually I hate the fonts. What a surprise. Shocker, right? But yeah, so usually I'll hate the fonts, but you can easily go into a master and just change the fonts in that template super, super quickly, and it applies it to every slide you create. It saves so much time to be able to do those sort of tweaks or even the color scheme. Like if you come across a template and you don't like the color scheme, you can change it directly in the master. There's only six colors in a Jamboard that you can use. So I don't know. I think definitely slides wins on customizability for sure. And And

Katie:

features, right? So in terms of how much you can do inside, Like, there's so much there, right? So many features. You have to learn them, but once you know them, it's a

Rachel:

pretty powerful tool. Now, I've got one other that's kind of weird for a Google tool and I, it just kind of popped into my head as we're talking here on slides, you can leave comments for people, whereas on Jamboard, There's no ability to comment anywhere. I never really thought of that. No, I never really thought about it either, but it's just something that's kind of popped into my head all of a sudden. So if you

Katie:

have group work happening on jam boards, you have to actually speak to the group or send an email versus being able to leave a quick comment on a slide. That they've been working on.

Rachel:

Or you have to like physically go and put a sticky note on there and then you would have to say who, who wrote that sticky note, because there's no kind of authoring that goes on in terms of that. So yeah, I thi I think, again, I'm so sorry, Jamboard, but Google Slides wins on that because you can leave comments and. You can have that kind of back and forth conversation without messing up anything on the canvas itself. So I'm gonna go back to

Katie:

backgrounds again. I like Jamboard for like the graph paper, the lined paper, you know, some of those backgrounds that they have built into

Rachel:

your options. I agree with that. So that is super useful for math folks. Like if you wanted to do a really quick sketch of a graph, you just need to go grab, like change and set the background to graph paper and then just draw right, and then it's easier to draw as well with the pen tool. And you can even get straight lines by holding down the shift key as you draw. I don't know if you know that, but that's a really kind of neat one. And so I would agree it's so much quicker, so much simpler to create any kind of graphing or or anything like that with those tools and those backgrounds in Jamboard. Whereas in slides, you would have to go find a picture of graph paper first and then upload it and Yeah. So it, it's a lot more steps. Yeah. The chalkboard background is also pretty cool in Jamboard, so if you've ever, if you haven't tried that before, if you go on that and then use the white pen tool, it looks really cool. I don't know. I think it's cuz it's different, right? Or if you use the yellow pen tool, like the colors stand out really, really nice on the black background. Yes. There's some good contrast. I think that's kind of cool as well. I mean, yeah, you could, you could simulate the same thing on Google Slides, but we've already talked about that in terms of the pen tool versus the scribble and it, it's just not the same. Jamboard definitely wins for any kind of writing on a slide for sure. Okay. Uh, one more that I have. That could be a kind of an interesting debate. So in slides, if you go to insert and then diagram, and again, this is kind of a hidden tool in slides, but there are so many types of diagrams, like pre-built diagrams that you could bring in into your slides. So you can bring in things like a grid, a hierarchy, a timeline, a process, a relationship, or a cycle. And then in each of those categories there's also different options. So you can decide how many levels you can also decide on from a few preset colors and then a few different styles. So I like this for creating really quick kind of flow charts. Yeah. Types of diagrams. And I think it's a very, very useful tool. But I also think that a lot of these are not that hard to recreate. And Jamboard too. I agree. And I think the reason why I like the Jamboard maybe a little bit more, even though they would look prettier in slides, is because. You could put stuff on sticky notes, and then it's really easy to move around the page. So if you wanted to start creating a flowchart, but then you're like, oh, no, wait, that shouldn't really be there. It should be somewhere else. It's easier to manipulate.

Katie:

So even the timeline. I like how interactive you can make a timeline on Jamboard. So if you do like the actual, like an image of a timeline and then sticky notes, you know, you can make it interactive and come up with that timeline with your students. So whether it's, you know, you've read a novel or a story and you wanna talk about plot and talk about the major events, Or you know, a history class and you're going through a specific unit and you wanna say, okay, let's go over what happened first in this event. You know, you can really kind of get them to brainstorm, put them all on sticky notes, and then, okay, now let's put it in order. Let's talk about what happened first. And I think there's more value to doing it. On Jamboard because you can make that so interactive and easy to move around. I think for

Rachel:

me this is, this is a really good example of taking both and smashing them together, and I think there's a lot of value in taking features from Google Slides that you don't have in Jamboard and creating stuff in there and then using them as. Custom backgrounds in Jamboard, and while they might be a little bit fuzzy, you still get that interactive experience with Jamboard. So what I would do is I would take, say one of these timeline templates, create my template in slides. Pull off all of the kind of writing piece and just put like the basics that I want to then be built on in Google Jamboard. No, I think

Katie:

that's great and I think that's where it comes down to use. So, you know, we talk about all of these things that Jamboard doesn't have or isn't quite as good at, but if I wanna make it interactive and something that I'm doing with my students and everybody's kind of getting a say and we're developing it together, I love using templates in Jamboard because then I. We're actually working together in problem solving together, and I'm not just doing a sit and get lesson, whereas slides, I think more, if I'm using it as a teacher, it's because I'm teaching out a lesson and you know, maybe we'll have some interactive time with slides, which makes it a great tool. But I think to be honest, Jamboard has interaction built into its purpose, and I think that's where. It really is more useful for me as an educator. Totally agree. So I think the lesson here is they're just different. So slides is, you know, it's a, it's a tool that Google has had for a long time, so it has a lot more features and has improved over time. And Jamboard is one that is up and coming for Google, so they haven't really had a chance to further develop it and make it as powerful as slides. But I think they're just different. They have different purposes. So I think the big question is what are your teaching goals and which one works best? I

Rachel:

think that goes with any kind of choice in terms of technology use though, and we were talking about this a bit before we recorded, but you really do have to start from a place of what are your goals? What are your goals for learning? What are your goals for your students? What do they wanna take out of that particular activity or lesson? And then choose your tool

Katie:

from there. Yeah, like don't just go to what you're comfortable with and what you're used to. I think it's important that you really do think about your goals of that lesson or that day and

Rachel:

that tool. I think that's actually where there's a lot of, I don't know, gaps in terms of professional learning. You know, cuz so much of the professional learning, like even stuff I've run this year has been very much a how-to kind of session. I know, but it's missing that piece of why, like, why are you doing this? Why do you wanna use this? Tool and what are you getting from it? And it's tough

Katie:

because this year is, well, it's crazy, right? Like we're in a totally different teaching system, hybrid quad masters switching to all remote. And so I feel like everyone is kind of just in survival mode and just trying to absorb as much as they can as to how to use tools, but not really ready for that next step of why and how do I choose the best tool for

Rachel:

what I'm doing? I think one of my big worries for. This is, you know, a lot of teachers are learning these tools and using them this year in terms of surviving, right? And being able to survive in this kind of virtual, hybrid, whatever, teaching world. But then once things go back to normal, like pre C O V I D, kind of normal, that it's all just gonna go back to the way it was where technology is not something that gets used and is just kind of shoved into a corner and they're just gonna go back to whatever was

Katie:

comfortable. I think yes and no. So there are some ways that yes, I might go back to less technology, like for some of my reading assessments. And you know, for my ELLs, I really like it when they're writing by hand on paper, when I want a diagnostic or an assessment that I can kind of track where they're at. But in some ways, You know, I have taken out of this year so much about building community and some of these fun activities that we do digitally. It's actually been really great and you know, my class, like they're so happy, they're so much happier because they get to know the students in their class more. They get to know me a lot more. It's more personal. And so I think in a lot of ways, We're gonna take the things that worked really well and continue, and then the things where, you know, this was survival and it wasn't the best, it wasn't ideal. You know, maybe I'll continue to build those skills with my students anyhow, because trust me, I learned the hard way. Then I need to teach my, my students how to use technology. Right? When we first went digital last year, And I was teaching students with, you know, minimal literacy in their first language and very little English. I didn't focus on technology as something I had to teach because I was really trying to get them communicating in English and understanding more of the world around them in the classroom and in school. And I learned that lesson the hard way that I kind of failed them in that respect. So in some ways I think we're going to take the technology and the things that really worked well and go with it, but I think teachers are also going to be open more. To a bunch of these tools that are really improving and have potential in their, in their classroom. Yeah, I guess we'll see. So I think time will tell those who hate technology will probably kind of let go of it a bit, but I'm hoping that we'll be pleasantly surprised. It

Rachel:

almost seems a bit wishy washy, right? That we're kind of ending on a note where, well, you gotta pick the right tool for the right job.

Katie:

Okay. So if you want me to choose. In terms of my teaching practice, if I had to choose only one of those tools, I would pick Jamboard. It's not as powerful, and it might not have the same features, but I could substitute something out instead of slides. Whereas in Jamboard, I really like the interaction and I like the power that that has. For a lesson in my classroom. Interesting. I think I've surprised you.

Rachel:

You have surprised me. But it does make sense from a teaching perspective. Now I'm thinking as a coach, which one I would prefer, I think in terms of the kind of work that I need to do, presenting a lot of professional learning and different opportunities there. While it pains me to say this because I absolutely love Jamboard, I think I would have to give it to Google Slides.

Katie:

No, that makes sense. Like when I deliver pd, I use slides. I don't use Jamboard, but for me as an educator, like as a teacher, like with students, I think I like Jamboard more. It really gets kids talking.

Rachel:

Now, for me it depends. I like using both together in professional learning. So if I'm presenting information, it makes sense to use slides using Jamboard to present information. You can't even get it into a presenter view. So, you know, there, there's kind of that piece. But then if we're doing. Any K, anything kind of interactive, any kind of brainstorming, anything like that? Y you gotta go Jamboard, but I guess, I guess if we don't wanna sit on the fence and we have to pick one tool, I would say for coaches and anyone sort of at that level in their district slides is kind of your go-to. That makes sense to me. It's so sad to say

Katie:

that though, and the fact that it's sad for you to say that tells me how you really feel about Jamboard. I can't believe that we disagree

Rachel:

though. Yeah, that's that's pretty impressive. I know. I think if Google got onto Jamboard and added a few more of those features, I. It would definitely change even for a coaching perspective. And I would say even if I, it, it depends. If I'm doing larger professional learning, larger sessions, then slides make sense. But if I'm doing one-to-one coaching, Jamboard absolutely makes sense. No, definitely. So again, it's, it's going back to those goals and what you wanna achieve in whatever you're doing. No, it's true. Anyway, we would love to know what you think. So are you team Google Slides or are you Team Jamboard? If you would like to weigh in on this conversation, we would love to hear it. So you could go onto our flipgrid at edu gals.com/flipgrid, or you could leave us a message on our website at edu gals do com and let us know which one are you. And to access

Katie:

our show notes because as always, we will have some show notes for you to follow along with our arguments. You can access that@edugals.com slash 42. That's edu G A L s.com/ 42.

Rachel:

And if you have a colleague or friend who would really benefit from our episode, we would love it if you would share it with someone and get into the debate with them. On whether they like slides or Jamboard better. I think this is, I don't know, it's kind of a hot topic. It's contentious, so we would, uh, we would love it if you shared it out and started that debate. Make

Katie:

sure that you subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content.

Rachel:

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.

Katie:

Thanks for listening to this episode of our edu Gals podcast. Show notes for this episode are available@edugs.com. That's edu. G A l s.com. We'd also love to hear your feedback, so leave us a message on our website,

Rachel:

and if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe and consider leaving a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep being awesome and try something new.