Hey everybody, it's Sam Kary from The New EdTech Classroom and in this video I'm going
to show you how to add backgrounds to Google Jamboard with Canva Edu. Google Jamboard is an
interactive digital whiteboard that you can use for whole-group interactive lessons,
for small group collaboration, or for individual activities, like interactive digital notebooks.
The web-based version of Google Jamboard is still relatively new to the scene and
over time Google has been adding new features to Jamboard that make it more user-friendly
in a classroom setting. One of those recent feature updates is the ability to add your own
backgrounds to Google Jamboard and one of the best places to get pre-made Jamboard backgrounds or to
create your own is Canva for Education. Bringing in your own custom Canva backgrounds makes Jamboard
a much more dynamic and useful educational tool and in this video I'll show you how to do it.
First let's jump over here to Google Jamboard so I can show you how to bring in
a custom background. You'll want to go to jamboard.google.com where you'll be able to see
all the recent jams you created and then you'll click on the orange 'plus' button to add a new one.
You'll see that the current background is blank, so to add your own custom background
you'll need to go to 'Set background' and from there you'll be able to add your own image.
Here you'll have the option to bring images in by uploading them from your computer, by adding
an image url, accessing your camera, searching for images on google, accessing your Google Drive,
or pulling images in from Google Photos. Now what I'm going to do is hop over to canva.edu.
If you don't already have a Canva for Education account, educators can get one for free and I've
put a link in this video description for you to be able to request an account if you're an educator.
Once you're in Canva you'll want to go up to the search box and type 'online whiteboard.' There you'll
see over 50 pre-made templates that you can edit, download, and use immediately in Google Jamboard, or
of course you can also just create your own. If you want to use a pre-made template, simply click on it
to see what it looks like. If you're happy with the template the way it is, all you need to do is click
'Download.' The entire template is also editable, so if you'd prefer that it didn't say 'Team Retro'
and instead said '8th Math,' just click on the text and edit it to reflect what you want.
Again once you're ready, click 'Download.' Once you've customized your template in Canva Edu, go back to
Google Jamboard and click on 'Set background' again, choose 'image,' and since I downloaded
the Canva template onto my desktop, I'll go to 'Browse' to find it, click on the file, and then it
will show up on the Google Jamboard background. Now since it's a background you and your students can
easily add elements on top of it without having to worry about accidentally moving or deleting
the template. Something I really appreciate about the pre-made templates in Canva is how
well thought out they are in terms of setting you up for interactive activities with your students.
For example, on this template, students start by posting sticky notes about what went well,
what didn't go well, and action items. You could easily imagine this would be a good reflection
activity for a small group that is working together on a project. Then after posting
stickies, the directions on the template are for them to vote for their favorite ideas using stars.
Here students can easily use the drawing tool to sketch a quick asterisk. Then after adding stars,
students would circle or mark up any promising ideas. Again the draw tool would probably be the
most appropriate here and remember as well that these templates are fully editable
so you could of course change the text if you wanted it to say something different.
There are lots of other pre-made whiteboard templates in Canva that are worth checking out.
For example they have brainstorming templates that you could use to have students collaborate
on ideas for a group project. They have Mind Map boards that you could use for students to share
what they learned about a topic or to prepare evidence for a research project. My Mood boards
are boards that students could use to share all about themselves as a way to build community
and there are Project Journey boards that a group could use to map out a strategic project plan.
There are also voting boards that you could use to offer your students choice and Thank
You boards that you could set up to have students share appreciations about each other. One thing
you'll notice about the templates in Canva is that many of them also include small animations.
If you want to keep these animations when you bring over the template to Google Jamboard,
you can but you'll just need to download the file a little bit differently. First in Canva
you'll want to go up to 'Download' and then click on the drop down menu under 'File type.'
Rather than an mp4 video, go ahead and select 'GIF' and then click 'Download.' Back over on Google
Jamboard, select the GIF file you just downloaded and that will bring in a custom background that
also includes animations. Of course in addition to using pre-made templates, you can also create
your own completely customized templates using an array of different tools in Canva,
though there are so many well-built templates, that for the most part I'd mostly recommend
just editing the ones that are already made. I hope you learned how easy it is to bring
in pre-made Google Jamboard template backgrounds from Canva Edu. If you're interested in learning
more about how to teach with Google Jamboard, be sure to check out my other videos about it. And
if you have any questions about how I use Canva or Google Jamboard, please ask in the comments below.
Thank you so much for watching my video to the end. If you found the tips that I shared helpful,
please share it with other teachers that you know, hit the like button, and subscribe to my
channel and hit the notification bell to make sure you don't miss any of my weekly updates.
You can also check out some of the other tutorials I have on my channel by clicking
on one of those two videos above and if you're interested in downloading any of the resources
that I've created and show on my videos, please visit my website at www.newedtechclassroom.com.
Lastly if you want to check me out on social media, my Twitter handle, Facebook page, and
Pinterest account are all in the description below. Thanks so much and have a great week!