How to use FigJam - Best Whiteboard Option!

hi there welcome to teachers Tech my name is  Jamie and it's great to have you here today   I want to show you how to use figJam a digital  whiteboard by figma now recently you might have   heard that Google Jam board is going to be  discontinued in 2024 even if it wasn't going   to be discontinued I would suggest that you'd  make the switch over to Fig Jam it's just a   far superior digital whiteboard and whether  you be corporate or education it can match so   many solutions if you're part of the education  system you can get this for free by say signing   up for an education account so today I want  to show you how to use fig Jam the digital whiteboard so where do you get fig Jam well I'll  put the link to this down below in the description

and you can go ahead and just go try fig Jam for  free I'll put another link if you are an educator   there will be this link also where you can sign  up with your Educator's account and then you just   need to get verified through that then you'll have  it for free so a couple options for there and once   you try signing up you'll see how easy it is just  go ahead and click on this for example you can go   get signed up with Google here and then you'll get  into the first screen and I'll explain what you're   seeing when you get logged in you're going to see  a screen like this I just want to explain that you

have access to a couple different things here we  have figma and fig Jam is the Whiteboard   that I'm going to tell you about but figma is  a design and prot protyping program that is   just fantastic that you also uh can be using so  if you wanted to design an app how it looks and   feel or maybe a website uh you can do that here  and I have a full different tutorial on that as   well I'll put a link to the card uh up top and  down below in the description but for us today   we're going to be dealing with the Whiteboard  we can access the Whiteboard right here with   all these templates uh but we're just going to  start from a blank one and we are going to go to

big Jam board right here so I'm just going to go  ahead and click this and right away I get a new   board here and once I'm in here I can always go  back so if I go back over here and just click on   this one I can go back to files and that brings me  back here now when I did that this is the Untitled   board that I just did I didn't even name it yet  and then I can go back to this one or even start   a new fig Jam board from here but I'm just going  to go ahead and open this one up again and maybe   I want to title it right away I could go up and  just click in here and this will be my example my   demo up here so now how does this work you're  going to see that the options are very simple   but there's lots of them that you can be playing  with I want to go back up to the navigation again

right to the left here the main menu I just  want to point out that if you go file you can   go from New fig Jam file right to here or design  file with figma but this way you can have multiple   uh different whiteboards open and each of these  will get saved you can see this is a new one I   haven't title you can close this down but this  would get saved in that main screen as well the   other thing I want to point out here in this main  menu is to uh if you want the desktop app you can   download uh this as well you can even save your  files locally so just a couple different options   if you wanted to go with that route too but they  are uh they work exactly the same whether you're   just using online a browser you can also be  using this on an iPad or any device you just   need to log in through the web now uh I just want  to point out what you're seeing right here these   are templates so they're just giving you a quick  preview of templates you can close this down here   and uh we'll go back to templates because we  can always access the templates right up here   but we'll go back in a little bit because they do  have some fantastic plastic templates I just want   to start here with this right here the main bar  to see all the different options that you have in

here so let's take a quick run through of the  bar down here looking at the quick tools you   can use so starting with our marker as soon as  you select it you get the options to choose the   marker we also have a highlight here uh but  we can choose thick or thin choose your color   choose a custom if you want but try dra with this  you can see how smooth and reactive it is I have   tested this out on a digital whiteboard as well  I'll put a little clip of me there working on   it and it worked very well just using my finger  and everything worked pretty much the   same as using it on my computer so if you're in  front of the classroom or out a business meeting   that can work well too now uh just to go back  to this right here we have our selection tool   if a the selection tool allows me to select  everything that I want by drawing it around I   can make some changes if it was going to be color  or even I can change the lines thickner thin and   there's some alignment there as well this tool  over here is the hand tool allows   me to grab the canvas and move it around speaking  of the canvas what I want to show you is how much   space you have notice it's at 100% right now if  I zoom out to 2% you can't hardly even seeing it   see it you have a lot of space to work with in fig  jam and again go to the hand if you want to move   it around uh I'm going to go back to this tool  because we have the Eraser here you can see how   easy it is just to erase uh this way as well uh we  do have our washi tape here in different designs   if you wanted to add some of these so just some  fun things also to have all right let's keep on   moving with some of the other options we have we  have our shape Tool uh what I like I'm going to   zoom back out to 100% when you add a shape so if I  add the shape I can quickly change the shape so if   I wanted a different one the other thing I can do  is the colors are quick to add and then I can go   through and notice we have these hovers and these  are connectors so if I go and draw it this way I   can add another shape to it make all those changes  I can add any text uh to these as well anytime I   add text I can add link I really like that with  using fig Jam if you have an external link you   can just add it and Away you go to whatever it be  maybe a video or document but I'm going to show   you how you can embed those right inside fig Jam  as well so uh that's a little bit about the shapes   another great option are the sticky notes and this  is a pretty common thing but what I like about it   if we go ahead and just drag one up notice how my  name goes on it right away uh so it makes it a uh   just kind of a nice way if someone's making a um  adding a sticky note the name is there so you can   see what uh what people are adding to it now I'm  going to jump over this I'm going to come back to   this because uh these are lots of fun plugins and  widgets I just want to talk about the text tool   super easy to add click your text draw your box  and uh just say what you want to and again make   your customization of the font size bold uh we we  can link anything like I showed you before if you   need more connectors uh just like when I had the  shape ones up here they're here so I can have a   connector as soon as I do that notice as I hover  over everything I can start to connect uh wherever   I want start to draw these all around uh we also  can go with our straight ones there as well the   stamp tool this is a fun uh thing because the  stamp tool allows me to give some voting some   lifetime voting because when you're working uh  you can share this I'm going to show you in a   moment uh but if I go to the stamp tool I can put  different ideas up and if I write something uh   then I can use these to find out uh how people are  feeling about different things so if I have this   I could add the thumbs up here uh maybe there's  something else that is a thumbs down you can put   that so you can get some feedback right away by  using those stamp tools the section tool here so   if I go ahead and let's say I have this text over  here I'm just going to change back to my selection   tool if I have this uh this right here I can draw  this I'm going to draw this over what this allows   me to do maybe I have a bunch of stuff underneath  it if I go and hide it then I if I don't want   people to see it right away I can do this and I  like that because then you can just hide it and   then when you want to reveal something you can  go ahead and do it that way I can name this uh   to what I want you can uh name it up here so you  could have different sections where you're hiding   and then showing as you go through and lastly  we have our table here uh very simple you can   just click and if you want to keep things clean  in tables you can just go through to the cells   and add the text so everything again works so easy  it's just when we're dragging and dropping these   now for some fun things I'm going to zoom out a  bit take a look at all the different uh widgets   and plugins that we have uh so there's stickers  templates widgets plugins and I'm not going to go   through them all here but just to show you all the  different things that you can add through here we   even have dice if you want to uh roll some dice on  here we have ice breakers just go searching so for

an example if I want this as a sticker I can add  it and move it around to where I want this camera   is kind of fun so if I go and uh let's say I go  to this camera I plunk the Polaroid somewhere here   and I'm going to move it over here and hit this  take a look at what happens here you can see the   green screens behind me I can click this I can get  ready for my smile and it comes out look at that   and then so if you were having a class or people  are in different places you could get people to   take a picture of themselves and just at that  point add it to the screen so that's kind of a   a fun add-on to it so go ahead and play with all  these things and uh just let me know what you're   thinking in the comments but there I want to  move over to sharing and how easy that works

this is another thing I really love about fig Jam  is just how easy to share so I'm going to go ahead   and share this I have two different browsers I  actually have Microsoft Edge on the left here and   I on the right I have uh Google Chrome I'm just  going to Click Share up here uh if I was going to   be working with teams and adding whether it be  other business people or students I could add   them through here uh but the way I want to show  you is you can see anyone with a link and I'm   just I could leave it to view or change it to edit  I can copy this you notice that you can actually   get the embed but if I just jump over here I'll  just close this down and I'm just going to paste   this so just controll V paste it over and uh take  a look at how easy this is so now I'm not logged   in as I move my mouse on the right on the left you  can see the hand move and uh it will say Anonymous   on it if I click over here now you can see on the  other side that Jamie Keat comes uh because that's   the side it's working on so if I had a bunch of  people that I'm sharing this I get an idea what   different people are doing so if I'm over here  uh and if I wanted them to edit right now they   can only have view that's why they don't have that  access but uh you can go ahead and start playing   with some of these options here and it gives you  an idea of what people are seeing on the other   side so just some easy sharing and remember this  works with iPads and different there's an app for   that this will work too if you have multiple  things happening in the classroom all right let's   show I want to show you a few more options now  here's another thing that is so awesome about

this uh whiteboard I'm going to bring some things  in let's start with a picture I could go and up to   the main menu and then I can go file import and  I can pick whatever image I want I can   size it I can crop uh all these great options and  hit the check mark and very easy to use so I can   add multiple ones I can also go for my let's say  this rate if I go ahead and copy image and just go   back to figma here I can just contrl V and paste  images right in uh notice it's just very easy with   all those even if I wanted a video so here is my  figma video so I could go control C copy this URL   come over here contrl + V and paste now this video  I can uh I'm going to zoom in here so I can grab   the side a little bit better uh I can still size  this here so I can go ahead and expand it and I   have this video link that I can have right in  here so it's a quick way to bring videos other   whiteboards I it just seems to be a little laggy  when we do this but I can hit welcome to teachers   Tech right in here so just some options that  you can uh be bringing things in but not only   that you can also bring in documents so if I have  a Google doc I could go and copy this URL go back   over here and just paste it again and I have the  document you need to be logged in so whether it   be a Microsoft uh if you're going into a Word  document online uh but here we go I can expand   this and I can actually since I'm logged into this  account I can go and actually work on it right   here so that's an option you don't see in a lot  of different whiteboards where things work that   well now uh the other thing that I really like is  PDFs I'm going to grab this PDF right here I could   import it but if I just drag it over and I can do  this with images to just drag things in uh and now   I'm going to zoom out this was a multiple uh page  uh PDFs here that it got brought in here with the   image and you can see that there's different text  on it as well so it's that quick on how it worked   so try with importing different things with the  links uh on it and dragging different things to   see what works best for you want quick access  to a timer big gems got you covered take a look in

the top left timer music and voting I'm going to  click on this pick uh you can add minutes to the   three already here but you can just type in what  you want so if you wanted a 2 minute and 30 second   timer go ahead do that we have a volume level  up here uh because you can pick a music uh to go   along with the timer so if we wanted to say it's  Friday uh we can go ahead start our timer start   our music and way it goes so I can go and stop  this here I'm just going to close this down so   a quick access to that the last thing I wanted to  show you today is the templates and the templates

are great uh because there's a lot of them I love  the design that they're uh that they have their   clean looks fun looks to it uh we have uh where  you can search through these different categories   here so if I say for the classroom uh take a look  at the different options that you have for any   of these ones from voting uh ones to circle map  process so I can go and uh maybe add this template   as soon as I add it it's going to be there so we  can zoom up if we need to uh be writing anything   or if you have multiple people writing in these  uh so these templates give you saves you a lot   of time uh organizing and creating them on your  own people can just go and add uh their ideas to   the sticky notes and then you could do the votes  that I showed you before on the other side there   is uh if you look over here they give you some  quick tips as well so there's lots of templates   that you can use uh these are great uh that you  can uh be looking for also you can go see in the   community for more uh again when you're all done  don't forget to name your different ones that   you're working with and then you can go back uh to  all your files so if you want to go back to files   it shows you what you've just been working on so  here's a couple that I've been working on today   so you have access all the time I just by simply  logging in and trying them uh so I hope you like   this kind of this walk through a fig Jam  I'm kind of excited about this product especially   with Jam board leaving I just find this has so  many more options than Jam board and a lot more   fun and easy to share so give fig Jam a try let me  know when you have tried it down in the comments   how it's working for you and some different  ideas maybe that you've tried with it thanks   for watching this time on teachers Tech I'll see  you next time with more Tech tips and tutorials