Space to Teach: Content-Rich Canvases for Visually-Intensive Education

TL;DR

This paper reflects on the approach to using SAGE3, a collaborative whiteboard with advanced features, in higher education to teach visually intensive classes, and gathers the observations into usage patterns for using content-rich canvases in education.

Abstract

With the decreasing cost of consumer display technologies making it easier for universities to have larger displays in classrooms, and the ubiquitous use of online tools such as collaborative whiteboards for remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, combining the two can be useful in higher education. This is especially true in visually intensive classes, such as data visualization courses, that can benefit from additional "space to teach," coined after the "space to think" sense-making idiom. In this paper, we reflect on our approach to using SAGE3, a collaborative whiteboard with advanced features, in higher education to teach visually intensive classes, provide examples of activities from our own visually-intensive courses, and present student feedback. We gather our observations into usage patterns for using content-rich canvases in education.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: Left: A collage of apps that can be launched on a SAGE3 board. Right: A SAGE3 session can be shared across multiple locations: some locations may serve multiple users co-located in front of a large wall, while others may serve an individual with varied types of displays.
• Figure 2: Elements of content-rich canvas usage patterns in education.
• Figure 3: Example boards demonstrating burst of content.
• Figure 4: Example boards demonstrating various usage patterns,
• Figure 5: Heatmap showing how the students used different features of SAGE3.