Today, on the Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 product announcement blogs, we announced a number of new features that are coming to Microsoft Whiteboard this summer, specifically for our education users. If you are an educator looking to keep your students more engaged, or if you haven't checked out Whiteboard in a while, keep reading!
Microsoft Whiteboard is a visually rich and interactive education tool that supports creative teaching and learning. With its infinite canvas and focus on teamwork, Whiteboard provides a place for teachers and students to develop ideas together in an ad hoc or in a formulated way, whether the class is taught remotely, in hybrid mode, or in person.
Create Visually Engaging Class Material
We understand that one of the hardest things for an educator to do, is to keep a student's attention throughout the class. Microsoft Whiteboard gives you tools to create beautifully engaging content for your class. Coming this summer to our Whiteboard web client and Whiteboard in Teams app, you'll be able to pull in images, content from other documents, shapes, and stickers to add fun and life to your lessons. You can save time by creating the boards ahead of class and then simply opening the previously created whiteboard during class to get going.
Focused, Dynamic Lessons
Microsoft Whiteboard can help your class get focused on the right things. Right now, educators have full control over who can edit the whiteboard and when. Annotate over your lesson with digital ink, highlighters, stickers, sticky notes, and text boxes for special emphasis. This summer, you will also be able to use the laser pointer to draw attention to important concepts. As whiteboards are inherently non-linear, you have the flexibility to dynamically change the flow of the lesson depending on the conversations that come up and where those discussions take you. For a more guided experience, you will be able to lock your students' view so that they see what you see. Run your lessons with a video conferencing application like Microsoft Teams for the best experience.
Group Projects and Interactive Lessons
When it comes to group projects and interactive lessons, you may want a little more structure. This summer, Microsoft Whiteboard will make it simpler to upload digital worksheets that you already have to the board, or create new ones using structured organizers that will come with the app. Add your content to the board, open it in a Teams meeting, or invite your students to the board and see their creativity blossom. With everyone on the same Whiteboard, live cursor identities will allow you to see where students are, who is actively engaged with the work, and which students might need additional help or clarification on the tasks.
Keep Focused with Microsoft Teams
If you use Microsoft Teams in your classrooms, life just got easier as Microsoft Whiteboard is directly built into Teams. While in a Teams meeting, open the share tray to share a new or an existing Whiteboard with the class at any time without needing to switch between apps and without losing the participant video feeds and context. This saves you time, keeps everyone focused on the lesson, and allows you to stay connected with the class. This feature is available right now.
Assignments
All those Whiteboard lessons you created, whether previously prepared or created through ad hoc discussions, are now even more useful as they can be uploaded to Teams Assignments as homework or reference material. Assignments in Teams will duplicate the whiteboards for you and students can submit their work for grading when they are done. Whiteboard is especially useful with Microsoft Teams’ new Group Assignments feature as it allows students to work and create together in real-time.
Microsoft Whiteboard is an intuitive app that students can quickly grasp. Pick up and draw with a pen, finger, or mouse, or select something from the toolbar to add, which means that students can spend their time on adding creative content as opposed to learning the tool. The wide range of tools from adding simple reaction stickers to creating full blown works of art, means that students can choose the level of engagement they're comfortable with. Microsoft Whiteboard is available on Windows, iOS, Android, and the Microsoft Whiteboard web client.
Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 Tech Community! Whether you have product questions or just want to stay informed with the latest updates on new releases, tools, and blogs, Microsoft 365 Tech Community is your go-to resource to stay connected!
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