180: Day 12: Mini whiteboards for sketching during group lab design; combining high- and low- tech

This year I’m having my students use shared Google docs for their lab write ups (developing their procedures, recording their data, etc.). One student starts the document and shares it with the others, so everyone is working on the same document.The problem with Google Docs is most of us can’t draw on a computer (while touch screen devices may offer some help, it’s generally not as good as what we can do by hand, and/or takes more time).

My solution for creating better images: Mini-whiteboards and photos with their phones.

Students can work together on a their whiteboard, and everyone can see it, regardless of the angle. When they are happy with their drawing, they take a photo of it and add that to their document.

We’ll see how it goes, but I like the results so far. I didn’t get any images of complete images, but here’s one that some students started on (yes, I believe that’s a mushroom cloud where the cars collide):