Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Academic Technology

#42 - Turn any table or wall into a writable whiteboard surface

  1. Collaboration is difficult in tiered lecture theatres and/or with large classes, and they are not usually equipped for students to work together sharing and developing ideas.
  2. We want to give all students a chance to work together to develop and share ideas.
  3. Enable team work by turning any surface into a whiteboard, and then recording and sharing student work.

Category: Teach in-class or online Run sessions in physical classrooms

Enhancement goals addressed: Student as producer | Valuing student contributions | Active learning | Engaged students

Tools and how to get support: Magic Whiteboard Paper | Solstice | Moodle Module Space | Microsoft Teams | Mobile phone camera | Standard teaching room equipment

Solution overview

Magic Whiteboard paper is a simple way of creating shared surfaces for team work. Put it onto tables, or walls (it sticks to them without damaging). Alternatively, use cheap whiteboards (£4 each from Wilko). Get students to photograph and share their work (onto a Moodle Forum, a Teams space, or some other platform). Or use Solstice wireless projection to display student work on the main screen.

Process
  1. First of all you need to think about the space you will be teaching in - how can you organise teams of students? where will they put their whiteboard paper? how will they record/share their work?
  2. Set up Moodle, Teams or another platform so that the students can save their work for later if needed. Make sure the students know how to do this.
  3. Provide paper, pens and whiteboard rubbers.
  4. If using Solstice:
    1. Most of our IT Services managed teaching rooms have the Solstice system installed. You should be able to switch the rooms projector to show it using a button on the lectern control panel.
    2. Follow the instructions on the screen to get the app installed and connect your tablet.
    3. Choose screen sharing to share your whole screen, or send a video or image file. You can control what gets displayed on the screen. Up to four devices may be connected at a time (or 2 if they are Apple devices).
0 page comments