Digital Icebreakers

In today’s episode, we'll review 13 digital icebreaker strategies for the K–12 classroom. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

#321 – Digital Icebreakers

AVID Open Access
13 min

Paul Beckermann  0:01  

Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Student  0:06  

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? What's in the toolkit? Check it out. 

Paul Beckermann  0:16  

The topic of today's episode is Digital Icebreakers. Let's face it, it can be uncomfortable when we find ourselves in an environment where we feel anonymous, or we don't know anything about the others around us, or when others don't know anything about us. And even if we do know a little bit about each other, it's pretty common for this familiarity to be mostly superficial. 

I remember those first days of class vividly. I was a shy kid, and it was hard for me to take the risk to start a conversation with classmates I didn't know very well. It was much easier to stay in my shell and avoid any potential conflict or embarrassing moment. But that didn't allow me to get to know my classmates very well. During the first days and weeks of school, this is often where students find themselves. They get sorted into classrooms full of peers that they may or may not know very well, and they very well may find themselves in settings where they're not entirely comfortable, at least at first. 

If you're a teacher listening to this, you know what I'm talking about, and many of you probably build icebreaker activities into the first weeks of school. Icebreakers, of course, are those fun and interactive ways for students to get to know one another, and they can be very beneficial. They help students become more comfortable with one another as well as with the teacher. They're structured so that they take the pressure to mix off the students. They provide a safe space for students to share something about themselves while learning about others. 

Icebreakers can increase peer empathy by helping classmates gain a better understanding of one another. They can also be gateways for students to make connections with one another that can develop into lasting friendships. They can offer you, the teacher, valuable insights into the needs of your students and help to inform how you design learning experiences. Although you've probably already met your students and begun the school year, it's not too late to think about integrating icebreakers into your classroom experiences. 

While icebreakers can be and often are offline activities, I'm going to share some digital strategies that involve technology. Some of the activities use technology to design or create the activity while the sharing happens offline or face to face. Others involve sharing that happens in a digital space. Both types of interactions are valuable, and you probably want to have at least some of the interactions be face to face, and even if the initial interaction is digital, consider a follow up that brings students into a face to face conversation with each other. This is a great opportunity to help them develop their interpersonal skills in settings that do not involve online and social media dynamics. So here's a baker's dozen of ideas for classroom icebreakers. 

Student  3:00  

Here is your list of tips. 

Paul Beckermann  3:04  

Number one, online discussion boards. If you have a learning management system or LMS, you probably have access to an online discussion board. This is a great place to have students begin to engage with one another. Offer them a prompt that asks them to share something about themselves. For older students, you can leave this a little more wide open, maybe even as general as, "Tell your classmates a little bit about yourself." For younger students, you'll want to be more specific and scripted to help guide them in their sharing. Maybe ask specific questions like, "What is your favorite thing to do in the summer?" Or, "If you could learn one thing, what would it be?" For any activity where students are sharing about themselves and perhaps being vulnerable, it's important to set expectations with the class for how to respond to others and how to be supportive and respectful. An ounce of prevention before you begin can head off a lot of student heartache later. 

Number two, presentations. In this classic activity, students create either individual slides about themselves or maybe even an entire slideshow. If you're having students design one slide, you could potentially have all of your students working off one collaborative template. For younger students, you might even have placeholders built into the slide template for them to simply fill out. With older students, you can provide more creative freedom, but you still may want to outline some parameters. If students are each creating their own slideshow, perhaps to present later, be sure to have a system for how they will submit or share that with you. 

Number three, design a virtual locker or pennant. These are generally facilitated with some sort of template which can be printed or completed digitally. At AVID Open Access, we have free digital templates for both virtual lockers and pennants. For the locker template, students decorate a virtual locker in a way that represents their interests and personality. They can do the same thing with the pennant or simply design something that represents them as a classmate. These activities not only let students express who they are to their classmates, but they also encourage creativity and problem solving. 

Number four, Quizlet Live with student survey. This is one of my favorite activities, and you may have heard me talk about it before. Students begin by completing a digital survey that you create. The survey should help you collect interesting information about each student. Then you take the survey information and create a Quizlet flashcard packet using the free online website, Quizlet. Be sure to include at least one card about every student. Then use Quizlet Live to turn those flashcards into a collaborative competition game where students need to work together in groups to figure out which classmate is being described. It's a really fun and engaging way for students to both learn about each other and be introduced to the collaborative problem-solving environment. Students can build rapport by working together to solve the challenge. 

Number five, roll and share. This activity works really well in small groups, you create a list of six sharing prompts, one for each number on a die. Questions might include things like share a favorite hobby, describe your family, or share a dream you have. You might consider having two options for each number so students have a choice if they end up with a prompt that makes them feel a little bit uncomfortable. Then students take turns rolling a die and responding to the corresponding prompt. You can use real dice or virtual ones. If you're looking for virtual dice, we have some at AVID Open Access. Virtual dice can be conveniently embedded into a slideshow or LMS, which is really handy. 

Number six, would you rather. This classic activity can be done with full classes or small groups. Basically, you share a series of options. Would you rather A or B? Students choose one of those options. If you're doing this with a full group, you can even have students physically move to one side of the classroom or another to represent their choices. Then they actually see who they agree with. If you're doing it virtually, you can use interactive polling software like Mentimeter. Students respond with their devices and see the results on the screen in front of the room. We've got some great would you rather prompt ideas on Avid Open Access if you're looking for ideas to get you started. 

Number seven, Padlet profiles. This activity is digital, at least at first. You create a Padlet for the class to interact with. Then students each go in individually and add to it. You might decide to leave this fairly open ended, such as, "Post words, images and videos to the Padlet that represent who you are and that will help your classmates get to know you better." Because Padlet allows for a wide variety of media types, students will have voice and choice in how they want to represent themselves. To make sure students engage with each other, you might want to create some sort of follow up activity, such as having students find at least one interesting fact about each classmate. Since the idea is for students to learn about each other, you'll need some sort of structure to make sure that students look through their peers' posts. 

Number eight, bingo card scavenger hunt. For this one, you'll create a bingo card using a digital tool like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, then print it for your students to use in a face-to-face activity. The bingo card should be filled with descriptors that might match a classmate. These might include things like, owns a bike, has a sister, loves to draw, has been stung by a bee, likes to go to the beach, and so on. Then, in class, have students mingle with their classmates, getting others to sign a square on the bingo card that describes them. It's a good idea to limit each person to three signatures to encourage students to continue mingling with others. You can create your own or use our bingo card template on Avid Open Access. Students have fun with this, and I'd encourage you to play along too, so your students get to know you as well. 

Number nine, class book with Book Creator. This is a little bit like the presentation option. But instead of using a slideshow, students create a digital book about themselves or add a page about themselves to a class book. Book Creator is a great option for this, since it's collaborative and allows students to include text, images, video, audio and links. The open endedness of it allows students to be creative in how they express themselves to their classmates and students love creating books. 

Number 10, t-shirt design challenge. This one works best in small groups. You give students a digital or print t-shirt template, and they collaboratively design a t shirt that represents the members of their group. While this can be done with a printed out version, the digital version does give students a few more options, such as inserting color images and even videos and audio, especially if you use a slides template. The activity not only forces students to work collaboratively, but they learn about each other in the process. 

Number 11, trading cards. This is similar to the t-shirt design challenge, but instead of designing an open-ended t-shirt, students create a trading card that represents who they are. This one probably works better individually with each student creating their own card. You can begin with a template, or let students design something from scratch. The younger the student, the more helpful a template will probably be. There are free templates available online, or you can design one using tools like Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. 

Number 12, group theme song. This is another great one for a group mixer. Challenge students to come up with a group theme song. You can add limiters and parameters to this if you'd like to, to guide it a bit. Maybe giving students several things that they have to include in the tune. Then you can have them perform this out loud in person, or you can go digital and have them use an online recording tool to record the song. They can then play that back later to the class. There are quite a few free audio recording tools available online. Some are very simple, like Vocaroo or One Voice Recorder. Others include mixers and editors in the suite. Tools such as Audacity, Clipchamp, Kapwing and Soundtrap. Some of those even provide loops and samples that allow students to add some beats or music to their production. They'll love that. 

And number 13, your baker's dozen number, Flippity scavenger hunt. For this one, you'll have students go to the Flippity website. It's free and offers a wide collection of templates. The one I'd suggest for this activity is called scavenger hunt. It's essentially a series of locks that students need to open by providing the correct answers to some questions. It's kind of like a virtual breakout activity. To use this as a mixer, I'd suggest having each student make one about themselves and then share their lock challenge with their classmates. You could have students team up to work on the challenges, or let students try them on their own. These offer a fun and engaging way to learn about each other. So there you have 13 class mixer ideas. 

These are certainly not the only options, but hopefully there's some here to prime the pump and get you thinking about what might work in your classroom. While these are especially beneficial at the beginning of the school year, I'd suggest not limiting yourself to the first few weeks. Mixers are helpful all through the year, as they can help deepen the relationships among your students and help them better understand each other as the year goes on. They're great both as full class activities and as icebreakers for small group projects or activities. 

To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org. And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai