Abstract
To create a more collaborative and communicative learning environment, digital tools are often looked to as possible solutions. Miro, an online whiteboard, is one such tool that allows students to easily share ideas and exchange information using a range of different media. Its strengths are its ability to allow real-time sharing and creation of ideas and information between learners and teachers using a host of multimedia. However, the numerous tools and options provided by the platform does come with a learning curve. Nevertheless, Miro is a useful option for encouraging collaboration between students, giving them a workspace to freely generate ideas and share resources.
Introduction
The multimodal use of digital platforms has, in recent years, generated exciting discussions on how to use language and other semiotic resources in the language classroom (Hafner and Miller, 2019). In our time of “social, collaborative, multimodal and networked forms of communication” (Weninger, 2019: 3), digital spaces such as Web 2.0 can provide affordances for students to focus on knowledge production (Khadka, 2019). Language education for the 21st century should move from focusing on language skills to multiliteracies education (Weninger, 2019). The pedagogy of multiliteracies allows teachers and learners to work around “text, discourse, genre, register in both print and visual media”, as Allan Luke, one of the New London Group scholars who advocates such concepts explains (Garcia et al., 2018: 74). This is further supported by Thorne (2020), who argues that educators can consider adopting the multiliteracies approach within the classroom, the idea being that such approaches would allow students to produce the necessary skills needed for the 21st century learner. In exploring these methods, this review hopes to demonstrate how a multiliteracy approach can be applied through a digital platform called Miro and share the authors' experiences with this in the tertiary language classrooms.
Miro
Miro is an online whiteboard that can be used collaboratively for brainstorms, scheduling and workflows. With the platform, teachers can create digital spaces for group cooperation through a wide range of functions. It can be accessed through Internet browsers or downloaded as an app onto a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. In the main interface, the whiteboard is known as a “board” and groups of boards are called “projects,” which owners can organize and label as they choose (see Figure 1).
Example of a blank Miro board – Miro.com (2022).
Some key functions found on Miro’s creation toolbar include templates for a variety of uses, frames that act as blank pages to create content on and a range of writing/drawing tools such as the text, pen and shapes tool (see Figure 2).
Example of the creation toolbar showing various functions – Miro.com (2022).
The main board menu gives access to settings, while the communication toolbar allows the board owner to share the board with other users and assign rights and permissions to view or edit. Users can see any changes made to the board by clicking on the notification bell button for the latest updates. One of the main features of the platform is that all changes and edits made on the board can instantly be seen by other online users of the same board. This provides opportunities for interaction and collaboration between students and the teacher as both groups can synchronously highlight, respond to and comment as content is posted (see Figure 3).
Example of the communication toolbar – Miro.com (2022).
While there are other online whiteboards available, many tend to be much simpler and more limited than Miro. For example, the Zoom classic whiteboard offers basic text and drawing tools, but it must be used within the Zoom environment. Students cannot access or add to it after the session has ended, whereas they can do this with Miro because it exists outside of Zoom. Zoom now autosaves whiteboard content before a session ends, but Miro autosaves changes as they are made and can even revert to previous versions from the board history. Google Jamboard is another online whiteboard option. However, Jamboard offers a much smaller working space than Miro’s virtually unlimited board. Jamboard has useful features such as sticky notes and file uploads, but Miro provides all of that and more, such as templates, linking to different areas of the whiteboard; grouping and locking of board elements; embeddable iFrame codes; timers; and polling.
Miro offers several benefits for language learning classes. First, it provides teachers with another method to present class notes and activities. Teachers can share written directions, language tasks and model answers on boards, and they can prepare all of this in advance to save class time. Working on a single board also gives teachers the ability to see the entire class’s work at a glance. They can easily check and compare students’ work and leave feedback if necessary.
Case studies
Miro was used in two separate cases to investigate its usability and efficacy. The first was in a discipline English course for engineering undergraduates being taught online. To help students prepare for a poster presentation assignment, a virtual poster exhibition was organized. Students uploaded their posters to the board, then viewed their classmates’ work and provided feedback to each other using the comments feature or sticky notes.
The virtual poster exhibition gave students the opportunity to explore their classmates’ creations and receive peer feedback at the same time. With minimal instructions, students were able to complete the task, quickly learning the different tools and navigations. One problem that arose is that some posters appeared slightly blurry when zoomed in. Therefore, when working with large images that include fine detail, such as text or diagrams, it is advisable to ask users to prepare high resolution files in advance.
In the second case, Miro was used in a pilot course in humanities as a platform for learners to take full control of their teamwork outside of class in order to create a micro-community (Hafner and Miller, 2019). Over a period of five workshop meetings, student groups worked together to create an argument on a current issue. The final project was to be presented in the style of a blog incorporating multimodal elements including text, images, infographics and video.
The platform was effective in providing students with a common space that gave them a sense of community both inside and outside the online classroom. This is because work was done outside as well as during class time, when students could practice and try out the different features in a low-stakes environment before transferring the skills to their final projects. Progress was seen in students’ boards as certain features used in class were eventually perfected outside class. Teachers were also able to learn from their students. For example, students used the platforms’ in-built emojis to react to ideas or comments written on the boards, which helped create a positive and engaging atmosphere.
There were also some teething problems while using Miro. When using pre-designed Miro boards with templates, students would sometimes accidentally drag away text or graphic frames, disrupting the original layout. This could have been avoided by locking the frames beforehand, thus protecting the placement of text, objects and images.
Conclusion
In conclusion, digital whiteboards such as Miro provide multifunctional affordances for students to use text, images, layout, music, moving pictures and sounds to make meanings (Kress, 2010). The platform’s various toolbars and in-built functions offer teachers a flexible and convenient virtual whiteboard allowing for greater student interaction. The two cases describe above provide examples of how Miro could be used to facilitate collaborative learning. While this is especially important in online classes, it can also be useful in face-to-face lessons when sharing and preserving the group’s work is necessary.
To sign up for a free educator’s account using your institutional email, go to: https://miro.com/education-whiteboard/
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
