Realizing the Benefits of a Smart Whiteboard
As more opportunities for remote learning, working and team collaboration becomes available, the need for reliable digital tools that can engage and adapt to changing work environments is more crucial than ever. Smart whiteboards provide teachers, managers, contractors, marketers and just about every other remote team you can think of with an expansive, interactive canvas. This canvas is capable of keeping people connected to one another and not isolated by physical distance.
Here are 10 benefits of interactive smart whiteboards we think you’ll love, no matter your profession.
1. Streamline Communications
Another perk of storing the latest updated, marked-up presentation or lesson on the cloud is the ability for presenters to quickly share it at the conclusion of a meeting. There are plenty of cases where not everyone can be in attendance for an important brainstorming session, or perhaps in an impromptu teaching moment arises without the ability for many to jot down their own notes.
A smart interactive board stores and shares these notes to keep teams and classrooms on the same page, regardless of any unforeseen circumstances. It even makes it possible to quickly screenshot and send clips of work performed on a smart whiteboard to mobile devices for easy sharing.
2. Allow Everyone to Contribute
The traditional lecture setup calls for one presenter with a marker in the front of a room, with an audience following along attentively (or in many cases, not-so-attentively). Smart whiteboards are the best option to get everyone on the team involved, particularly in cases where coworkers are tuning in from home.
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Making your thoughts known via real-time notes and annotations on an existing canvas is a simple, effective method of offering important feedback. It provides students pursuing online learning with hands-on experiences throughout their curriculum. It also gives team members the opportunity to quickly amend marketing messages, design plans and other key initiatives without disrupting their team lead.
The practical applications for real-time markups are endless, as are the improvements smart whiteboards can make to an office culture relying on input from each individual team member.
3. Encourage Better Engagement, Retention
Much of what makes a smart interactive whiteboard so valuable is its ability to engage audiences. Holding the attention of any group, particularly when individuals are dialing in remotely, can be a challenge. Most of us have sat through at least one text-heavy PowerPoint presentation that probably could have been an email.
Smart whiteboards change the game entirely, allowing presenters to integrate videos, provide interactive games, highlight key information, and perhaps most importantly allow students and coworkers to markup and engage with the presentation from their own screen.
Presenting important information through these interactive elements not only aids in holding a group’s attention, but also helps the information “stick.” The option for employees and students alike to draw, markup and annotate presentations on their own is a proven method of improving retention. Research has discovered drawing information to be a particularly effective way to facilitate learning, nearly doubling the amount retained after a presentation.
4. Lets You Work With an Infinite Canvas
One of the most obvious limitations of the standard classroom whiteboard is a lack of available space. Cramming information into any available corner of a traditional whiteboard or erasing parts of your presentation, brainstorming session, or working flowchart can hamstring a meeting’s effectiveness (especially if you find yourself needing the information in future meetings).
The interactive smart whiteboard offers an unlimited canvas, which means you won’t ever have to worry about running off of the side of the page before an exciting new idea is fully explained. The ability to scroll, zoom and note as much as your task requires is a significant upgrade over working on a traditional whiteboard surface.
5. No More Worrying About Losing Your Hard Work
Speaking of saving, all actions performed on a smart whiteboard will be saved automatically without fear of losing the presentation you’ve worked so hard on all afternoon. There is always the option to export important data to an external drive for added peace of mind. However, the cloud will safely house all of your readily-accessible information and even provide version histories to help employees track a project’s evolution over time.
Automatically saving the most current version of your important data through the cloud makes it possible for teams to work simultaneously on projects without missing a beat. In the days of external hard drives, employees would need to physically plug into a drive for access, pull files from the drive, back up new data and perform several actions manually that put files at risk for getting lost, misplaced, or worst of all — erased.
Cloud services handle these functions behind the scenes for smart whiteboard users, and generally offer a host of user-friendly tools to enable completely automated data backups. For example, businesses with a Google Drive service will use Drive File Stream, the tool that essentially syncs data instantaneously across connected devices to enable “real-time presence” in Microsoft Office files. With this feature, users can see if someone else is editing a shared Office file and prevent potential conflicts with collaborators trying to locate the latest file version since the file will always be up-to-date across every device.
6. Integrating Smart Whiteboards with Additional Technology is Easy
The Vibe Board was designed to incorporate the most useful collaboration tools available to fit seamlessly into virtually any workplace. Its suite of built-in integrations aid in strategizing, mapping, presenting, educating and project management — not to mention, they work pretty well as multitasking tools for educators. Presenting in-person, broadcasting remotely to students or employees in their own homes, recording demos or lesson plans, or any combination of the above can be done simply and effectively through Vibe’s host of available tools and integrations.
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7. Provide Access via Multiple Devices
Smart whiteboards store your presentations (along with any notes and markups) in the cloud — a network of remote servers allowing your data to be accessed, updated, downloaded and recovered remotely by any device with an internet connection and authorized access to the files.
That means all the important information pertaining to your latest project isn’t just available to you when you’re in the office. As working from home continues to become more viable for businesses across the country, safely being able to access work remotely will become even more of a necessity. Being able to quickly save or download task notes from your smartphone is an efficient way to keep teams on track and informed.
This is also a major step forward for remote collaboration. Smart whiteboards make it possible to break into teams or pairs to work together, dividing the screen into multiple workspaces. Work done by individuals is also instantly accessible by everyone in real-time, so no more worrying about working off of an outdated file.
8. Your Data is Stored Securely and Efficiently
Cloud cost optimization is a regular topic of discussion among businesses who utilize remote storage, with 61% of organizations planning to optimize their cloud costs in 2021, and 76% optimizing their spending on data storage thanks to cloud initiatives. As remote positions and online schooling increase in popularity, so too will cloud storage demands increase as collaborative tools (like the smart whiteboard) become more commonplace.
A growing business looking to digitize or a school district turning to digital solutions for the first time won’t know exactly how much storage it might initially need. Fortunately, the smart whiteboard’s connection to cloud services makes it easy for users to store data and flex their storage requirements (and associated storage fees) from month to month according to changing needs.
9. Smart Whiteboards Are Designed to be User-Friendly
One of the potential hang-ups employees may have when it comes to introducing a smart whiteboard into the office is the potential learning curve associated with any new technology. While a standard whiteboard is as simple as using a marker that hasn’t run dry, smart whiteboards have undergone extensive testing to become as user-friendly as possible. Preparing your team to get the most out of a new smart whiteboard is highly recommended. However, most students and remote workers with the know-how to tune into a zoom call are likely to find the smart whiteboard’s standard set of tools fairly intuitive.
Common functions you might find yourself frequently using on your smart whiteboard include handwriting and shape recognition, mark-up and eraser tools, text boxes, “laser” pointer functions, changing backgrounds (including a grid for charts and graphs), zoom in/out, and the ever-important undo button.
10. Smart Whiteboards Are Fun to Use
Presenting material in a more accessible, engaging way doesn’t just benefit your audience — it helps you, too. Smart whiteboards are always adding new functionalities and useful integrations to fit your specific business. That means you’ll have plenty of plug-ins at your fingertips each time you present a deck to a client or a lecture to a classroom with a smart whiteboard. Circling important passages with a swipe of a finger, grabbing objects and tossing them to your audience’s screens and incorporating interactive elements will make your own smart whiteboard experience as a presenter worthwhile.
Never underestimate how much enjoying your own material can have on an audience eager to learn. Smart whiteboards are designed for ease of use and practicality, but they also provide an attention-grabbing flair you just can’t get with a traditional whiteboard.
FAQs
How is a smart whiteboard helpful in the classroom?
Smart whiteboards have proven helpful for educators around the world. Not only do they save classroom and planning time, they make communication easier between teachers and students, and make access online resources simpler than ever.
What can I do with interactive whiteboards?
Smart whiteboards have a myriad of uses in the classroom. Use your Vibe Board to:
- Create lesson plans, saving them for later use in Vibe’s cloud-backed whiteboard software, Vibe Canvas.
- Record classroom lectures for students who missed class
- Never erase again!
- Use online resources like Youtube videos or full access to the internet browsers of your choice to add to the learning experience
- Play interactive games with your class, and download educational apps in the Vibe App Store.
Can you use an interactive whiteboard for business?
Absolutely. Plenty of business use Vibe for remote or hybrid collaboration, leading meetings, brainstorming sessions, and much more.
The physical specs of Vibe Boards include a 75- or 55-inch 4K touchscreen that doesn’t require the difficult price-point of its competitors. Vibe Boards are also low-latency products (which means no awkward delay when presenting) and provide the ability to quickly mark up, save and share presentations, pictures, and files from other apps. Curious to learn more? Get a virtual demo of Vibe today.