Design a Room in Jamboard

One of the fun and interactive aspects of Jamboard is that you can create an activity with moveable objects. In previous posts, we have demonstrated how to re-order parts of a sentence and to simulate people giving and receiving objects. Today's tip offers a method of easily creating another familiar language learning task, that of moving furniture into a room and explaining to a partner where each item is located. The Jamboard feature that makes this activity so simple to create is the built-in image search function. 

The Jamboard slide for this task has two layers. The bottom layer is an image of an empty room. The upper layer consists of small, individual images of furniture and other objects. The image I selected for the empty room was more square in shape, which allowed for blank space along the left and right borders, where I can initially place the small objects.

The users can drag and drop the objects however they choose. For example, I can place the table in the middle of the room and the carpet in front of it. I can hang the mirror on the wall and put the easy chair beside the plant in front of the window. The cell phone is on the easy chair, the dog under the table, and the cat is in the corner. Students can give each other commands or where to place the objects, narrate their actions, or describe differences between two layouts. 

How to make the Jamboard slide

For this activity, you will repeat the process of searching for and selecting images to add to your slide. 

1. First prepare to set the background image. 

2. Click on the icon to add an image.

3. Use the built-in Google image search function to find a suitable empty room. Select it and set it as the frame background.

4. Now that you have the background set, you can add individual images to the slide. 

For each image, click on the "Add image" icon and then use the built-in google search to quickly find and insert images. There is no need to download them first to your machine or account. Once they appear on the slide, you can resize them to fit in the room. 

How to make copies of the slide for use with multiple groups 

1.  Click on the expand frame carot at the top of the slide below the slide number.

2. Then click on the vertical three dots of the slide you wish to duplicate.

This activity can be used to practice vocabulary in many content areas (house, park, city, meal, etc). Different grammar topics can also be practiced by giving students specific instructions of how to describe the image or how to interact with a partner.