Innovations: Employing Miro Whiteboard for Collaboration
Students enrolled in William & Mary’s new Online Master’s in Marketing program will be among the first in the school to leverage the use of a new collaborative technology called Miro.
Miro is a robust online whiteboard platform that allows teams to collaboratively brainstorm, plan, design, iterate, and integrate through an infinite canvas without constraints.
The marketing faculty plan to employ Miro specifically for the “Marketing Challenge” project that students will work on throughout their time in the program and culminates during the Capstone course.
The “Marketing Challenge” concept is introduced in the program’s first course, Renaissance Marketer, as students are asked to identify a multi-faceted problem facing their company or organization. Using the faculty-designed template in Miro, students will apply key concepts they learn in the program and fill out assigned portions of the template as they move through each course.
“We have been using a variety of pretty good virtual collaboration spaces in our Online MBA Program and elsewhere, and they are very useful, but Miro takes it all to a new level,” said Associate Professor of Marketing James Olver. “The scalability, integration with other tools, and built-in templates make it a powerful vehicle for online ideation, and for collaborating and sharing across the curriculum as students work on their Marketing Challenge.”
Miro allows students to integrate all of their documents, screen shots, files, sticky notes, spreadsheets and more in a single collection hub. The platform’s ability to support incorporated multimedia, links, and other elements will provide students with unlimited creative opportunities to make their project dynamic and interactive.
Students will have the ability to add apps and widgets to their whiteboard canvas that deepen the project’s integration with third-party tools like Google Drive, Adobe, Box, and Microsoft 365.
Miro also allows for peer review and instructor feedback in real-time or asynchronously. Students will be able to track the evolution of their marketing challenge throughout the program and demonstrate how their final solution adds new value to their company or organization in addition to the collective knowledge and innovative skills they’ve gained as a student.
“We’re constantly looking for new tools and technologies that enhance the student learning experience. Miro is one of the most comprehensive yet simplistic online collaborative platforms I’ve seen and has been adopted by companies like Netflix, Spotify, Verizon, and Twitter,” said Ali Blankinship, Director of Instructional Affairs. “Integrating Miro into our Online Master’s in Marketing program is duplicative of what’s being used in real business settings, providing our students with an opportunity to gain the skills needed to thrive in a rapidly evolving and increasingly digital working environment.”
