Miro as a new user: a tool for collaboration, with potential for improvement

When the world shifted from teaching on campus to teaching online, many of my colleagues started using Miro. Since then, I have probably introduced Miro to students from different countries more than 6 times. Every time I expect a class to use Miro, I use 10 minutes to introduce the platform. The tools for drafting, writing, and editing are fairly straight to the point. Users find it easy, and the interface reminds them of a lot of basic software they are familiar with. The commenting and following is sometimes a new feature that new users need to learn how to use (hence my 9/10). I noticed that users who are not tech-savvy take some time to get used to this feature. Overall, Miro has been the tool I use to make teaching interactive, to follow up on students' work, to plan workshops, and also to present final products. In my practicing life as an architect, I started using it too. I plan to use Miro beyond the pandemic and introduce it as a tool to use for team building and teamwork, even if events/classes are happening in real-time. Overall, it's a good tool!

Miro has absolutely impacted my students' ability to collaborate. Students were living in multiple time zones. Traditionally, they would have to communicate by phone, WhatsApp, and email. Keeping track of all that would have been a problem. With Miro, students were able to add materials, comments, and tag classmates (the tag feature is great!). So even if a classmate is not online, they would still be able to see what tasks need their attention.