How to Use Miro as a Digital Whiteboard

Miro is basically an online whiteboard, and it can come in handy for teachers in a number of ways. You can add sticky notes, text, shapes, lines, drawings, comments, and other content to a board. One thing I like about Miro is that the board can just keep growing. Instead of creating a new presentation for every class, you could have one large board with different sections and keep adding to it over time.

You can also share a Miro board with students. For example, you could have an ongoing board that keeps track of what you've covered in class and give students a link so they can view it. This could work well for Zoom lessons, private lessons, or any course where you want students to have access to a visual record of what you've done. Students can zoom in and out and move around the board to find the content they need.

If you want students to actually contribute to the board, there are a few extra steps:

1. Create your board. Add your notes, examples, images, grammar points, or other class content.
2. Share the board. Students can use a shared link to view the board and follow along with the lesson.
3. Invite students to collaborate. If you want students to add or edit content, you may need to invite them using the email connected to their Miro account and give them the appropriate permissions.
4. Give students a task. For example, ask them to add a sentence using one of the grammar points on the board.
5. Build the board together. Students can add sticky notes, comment, draw, and contribute examples while everyone watches the board change in real time.

For example, I created a grammar board with different types of clauses. I can ask students to add their own examples using sticky notes and even use different colors for different grammar points. A student might add The money spent on the party was worth it as an example of a past participle clause. Other students can see the new example appear and use the board to follow what everyone is doing. In that sense, it's a lot like asking students to come up and write something on the classroom whiteboard.

I'm still fairly new to Miro myself, but I can already see a lot of possibilities. The feature I'm most interested in is simply having one large board that students can access throughout a course. The board can grow and grow as you add material, or you can use it as a live presentation space that students follow in real time. I'm planning to use Miro more in my classes and experiment with what it can do. If you're already an experienced Miro user, I'd love to hear how you're using it with your students.