In September 2023, Google announced that it would discontinue its Jamboard application by the end of 2024. In their statement, they acknowledged “...we’ve heard from customers that whiteboarding tools like FigJam by Figma, Lucidspark by Lucid, and Miro help them work better together.” While we recognize that business customers will willingly gravitate toward newer tools with more features that integrate with their other technologies and business processes, we believe Google has underestimated the immense value Jamboard has to the education community and may not be aware of the significant advantages that Jamboard offers in comparison to the proposed alternatives, particularly for marginalized learners.

Since its inception, Jamboard has had incredible appeal to educators and learners; in particular, during the shift to emergency remote learning brought about COVID-19, Jamboard emerged as a simple yet powerful tool to support synchronous and asynchronous communication and collaboration. Emergency remote learning surfaced significant barriers, rooted in the digital divide. Jamboard’s appeal to educators stems from three key qualities that make it an optimal choice for both learners and educators in resource-constrained contexts and who are developing foundational digital skills: 

• JAMBOARD IS FREE. Jamboard is a free tool and, given the widespread use of Google’s suite of tools within educational settings, it works seamlessly alongside other applications already being used by many educators. Even though some other whiteboard tool options available have “free(mium)” models and educator accounts, these do not account for informal educational settings - such as free literacy classes at community-based organizations - that may not offer staff an “.edu” email address or have a budget to cover the costs of educational software. Additionally, the features realistically needed for long-term, sustainable use of these tools with learners on a regular basis are not free; and, given “whiteboarding software” is not a priority of school districts, the cost of upgrading is likely to fall on individual instructors.
• JAMBOARD IS EASY TO USE. The Jamboard application itself is very basic, and therein lies its power. Basic features such as sticky notes and text boxes are all that are needed to support highly effective synchronous and asynchronous collaboration among learners. Even for the most novice learners and instructors, creating, sharing, and working within a Jam is straightforward. While robust features available in other tools such as “infinite canvas” are certainly valuable, the contained, slide-like setup of Jamboard lends itself to the collaborative, structured sequencing of instruction, making it a flexible tool for seemingly unlimited creative uses by advanced users while not being intimidating to digital novices.
• JAMS CAN BE SHARED AND ADAPTED. Since the pandemic, the increased use of a wide range of edtech tools has both encouraged (and, in many ways, necessitated) educators to also become instructional designers. This only adds to the long list of responsibilities classroom teachers must address. However, the ease with which Jams can be viewed, shared, and copied for reuse by others has made it a go-to tool for educators and education systems for designing shareable, adaptable activities to help lessen this burden while increasing collaboration amongst educators. Boards of education such as New South Wales, Australia have leveraged Jamboard to create reusable activities to support their teachers with technology integration by providing digital templates that leverage evidence-based classroom routines , while organizations such as World Education’s CrowdED Learning have developed free service-learning professional development opportunities for educators to use Jamboard to create reusable curriculum supplements, such as this collection of reusable activities to support health literacy with ESOL learners. 

No-cost access, simplicity, and adaptability have made Jamboard a go-to resource for thousands of educators. In a digital world - often driven by consumerism - where we are regularly being pushed toward the newest, next best thing, these very aspects of Jamboard also make it a glowing example of an application that supports no-frills, equitable access to quality digital learning opportunities. Please sign this petition (and share why you love Jamboard!) to help voice to Google how important it is to continue to support the use of Jamboard for teachers and learners worldwide.