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Actively Learn is a reading site that allows teachers to assign readings, multiple choice quizzes, and open ended questions by content or theme.

Teachers can edit questions and leave comments on the open ended assignments.

This site includes novels ($), fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

NewsELA is a free resource that includes reading; current event articles with reading checks.

TeenTribune is a Smithsonian resource that allows teachers to assign current event articles by topic and lexicon level.  Readings include multiple choice and blog posts that teachers can assign and preview before publishing.

MyShakespeare is a free resource for engaging students in Shakespeare's plays.

Quill.org: Quill provides free sentence writing and grammar activities for elementary, middle, and high school students with feedback.

Peergrade.io: a platform where students can evaluate each other’s work anonymously. After teachers create an assignment and a rubric, students submit their work and provide feedback to their peers.

The New York Times created a Learning Network for teachers to use with their students.  There are complete units, engaging activities and thematic contests.

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Virtual Museum Template by David Lee EdTech

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FCA DRAFT: Expectations

Reflect on your Draft, ask a trusted friend to give feedback, develop and practice a roll-out plan:

Are my agreements rooted in positive or negative assumptions?

Does the length of our agreements communicate that we are anti-racist / sharing power?

Does the word choice used in our agreements communicate that we are anti-racist / sharing power?

Does the content of our agreements communicate that we are anti-racist/ sharing power?

Does the way we share our agreements communicate that we are anti-racist/sharing power?

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How will you create multiple opportunities for students to respond throughout the lesson?

How will you define what participation looks like

How will you post/communicate collaboration  expectations?

How will you check for understanding throughout a virtual lesson?

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Wheel of Names allows teachers to upload class lists and "spin the wheel" to cold call on students.

Flipgrid allows teachers to create a 'Grid" that students respond to in a 15-second to 5-minute videos of themselves.

Video responses can be used to respond to prompts or explain problems

Teachers and peers can respond to participants by liking, commenting on, or uploading a video response.

Animoto: Teachers and students can create 30-second videos using uploaded pictures, words and music to summarize what they learned.

Sparkpost: for 2 months, this app is free for teachers to create beautiful posters, graphics, web pages, or videos.

Piktochart: With the free version, teachers can create 5 beautiful info-graphics, flyers, posters, presentations and reports easily with absolutely no design experience.

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NowComment allows students to comment on- like a discussion board- or annotate an anchor text that you choose from their bank of texts or upload your own.

Hypothes.is is a social reading annotation site that allows students to upload a text, or web address, and access annotations from other users.

Edji: is a reading tool that allows teachers to upload texts that students can engage with through annotations, metacognative markers, and peer discussions.

Padlet: “Graffiti Wall Activity” is a great way to get students to collaborate with one another in real time.  Just think of Padlet like a large sheet of paper and the students will fill in this virtual paper with images, connections, words, questions, quotes as per the teacher’s requirement.

Jamboard: is a digital whiteboard to write and draw, as well as add images and sticky notes. If you share it with others, they'll be able to do the same in real-time.

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Free Google Slides themes and Powerpoint templates | Slidesgo

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Discover the best Google Slides themes and PowerPoint templates you can use in your presentations - 100% Free for any use.

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Do's and Don'ts of Accessibility

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How to add speech to google slides for differentiated learning

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How to add speech to google slides for differentiated learning

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NYKids - University at Albany | Inform, Inspire, and Improve

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By Stephanie Affinito, Ph.D., Clinical Teaching Faculty, Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning, University at Albany; saffinito@albany.edu

Supporting Literacy Instruction Remotely

Educators everywhere are shifting their instruction to online spaces to support their students' learning remotely during these unprecedented times. While digital and virtual spaces cannot replace connected classroom communities, today's tools and technologies can invite students into reading, writing, and learning experiences that mitigate the loss of class time due to the Covid-19 closures. We can connect students to digital read-alouds and texts for reading, support daily writing at home, and use world events as a springboard for learning.

Connect Students to Online Texts

Since students will likely have limited access to libraries and bookstores, online and digital tools can easily connect students to hundreds of texts with the touch of the keyboard or swipe of the screen. Here are a few websites to easily connect students with recorded read-alouds and digital texts:

Storyline Online: Storyline Online invites celebrated actors to read children's books alongside creatively produced illustrations to bring animated read alouds directly to your students' homes.

Get Epic: Epic! is a digital library for readers under twelve years old with 35,000 of the best books, articles and learning videos. Teachers can create collections of books to share with students or students can browse based on their interests.

Unite for Literacy: Unite for Literacy provides digital access to an abundance of early digital books that celebrate languages and cultures and cultivate a lifelong love of reading. It will even narrate those books in multiple languages for an instant listening station at home.

Wonderopolis: Each day, this website poses an intriguing question-the Wonder of the Day®-and explores it in a variety of ways-perfect for piquing students' curiosity. Paired with short video clips and activities to try at home, this is the perfect site to launch learning at home.

These sites are excellent starting points, but if you are looking for more resources, especially for older readers, take a look at this curated collection of digital texts online.

Support Writing at Home

There is much for students to ponder, question and grapple with as each day brings new information and challenges to tackle. Writing can help students process their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to these world events. Educators, authors, and illustrators are sharing resources designed to help students put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to capture their days of learning, spark new writing, and work through the emotions they may face. Here are a few worth checking out:

Lunch Doodle: Mo Willems, celebrated children's author, invites students into his studio every day for his LUNCH DOODLE. Each day, Mo invites students to draw, doodle, and explore new ways of writing by visiting his virtual studio daily at 1pm EST.

Courses for Young Writers: Angela Stockman, author of Make Writing, has graciously created online units of study inviting middle and high school writers to write personal narratives based on the daily events of their lives.

Jarrett Lerner and Josh Funk, children's authors, each provide resources and ideas to spark writing at home. From comic strips to character cards, they are sure to motivate young writers. Try searching for your favorite author and visit their website. You might be surprised at the resources you find for your young writers!

A Writer's Notebook: Ralph Fletcher has the perfect book to spark daily writing while learning from home, but you can still support daily writing without a copy through this hyperdoc instead. It walks students through Fletcher's (1996) text and offers prompts for students to explore in their notebook. Students can snap a picture of their pages and insert them into the hyperdoc, sharing them with you to build a writing habit from home.

Use World Events as Springboards for Learning

Students are naturally curious, so why not use the actual events of their daily lives to prompt learning? While we may still have content to cover and standards to teach, students are experiencing complex changes in their lives that can drive learning.

Here are a few resources to help students learn about what is going on around the world and how to proceed with their new normal:

Many educators have been called to quickly shift their instruction online with little time and few resources to do so. As we come together to support learning from home, let's remember what is most important during this challenging time. Let's invite students to read and write their way through these world events and stay connected to a learning community to not only fuel their minds, but their hearts as well.

NYKids will continue to highlight research and provide practical recommendations to help New York's children thrive during this national emergency. We also welcome comments and suggestions of topics you would like to read more about at nykids@albany.edu.

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Supporting Literacy Instruction Remotely | NYKids - University at Albany

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In this blog, guest writer, Dr. Stephanie Affinito, offers recommendations for family members and caregivers to encourage children's literacy learning during school closures due to Covid19 school closures.

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Karwai Pun is an interaction designer currently working on Service Optimisation to make existing and new services better for our users. Karwai is part of an accessibility group at Home Office Digital, leading on autism. Together with the team, she's created these dos and don'ts posters as a way of approaching accessibility from a design perspective.

The posters

The dos and don'ts of designing for accessibility are general guidelines, best design practices for making services accessible in government. Currently, there are six different posters in the series that cater to users from these areas: low vision, D/deaf and hard of hearing, dyslexia, motor disabilities, users on the autistic spectrum and users of screen readers.

The dos, that run across various posters, include using things like good colour contrasts, legible font sizes and linear layouts. So, aren't good design principles applicable to everyone and not just those with access needs?

While this is true, the aim of the posters is to raise awareness of various conditions through good design practice. We need to be mindful of not just designing or building for our own immediate needs. For example, consider designing for keyboard use only. This is particularly helpful for users with motor disabilities where using the mouse can be quite difficult, especially with precise movements, whereas keyboard use is much easier.

Another aim of the posters is that they're meant to be general guidance as opposed to being overly prescriptive. Using bright contrast was advised for some (such as those with low vision) although some users on the autistic spectrum would prefer differently. Where advice seems contradictory, it's always worth testing your designs with users to find the right balance, making compromises that best suit the users' needs.

The team

The content for the posters came from our accessibility team in Home Office Digital. Led by accessibility leads Emily Ball and James Buller, we are a group of twelve, each specialising on these conditions: blind and visual impairment, dyslexia, autism and ADHD, D/deaf and hard of hearing, mental health and motor disabilities. Collectively, we learn as much of the conditions as we can to better increase our knowledge so they can be shared within and outside the team.

One of the challenges we faced with the posters was gathering information from our different specialisms and reducing the vast amount of knowledge to ten principal dos and dont's. There's also challenges surrounding content and graphics. I worked with Nick Cowan, a content designer, who is leading on motor disabilities, to keep the content concise and ensure the graphics visibly represented the advice accurately.

Next steps

We've shared these posters across government for feedback and they can be found on GitHub.

We are constantly improving and adding to them so please let us know what you think. Understanding accessibility through design means we can build better services for everyone, whatever their access need.

Update: We've been asked whether these posters can be reproduced or translated into other languages. In keeping with the the GDS ethos of making things open, we've used a Creative Commons license which allows everyone to share, use and build upon the posters provided they are used non-commercially and keep the appropriate attributions (Home Office, Home Office Digital and the Creative Commons logo). It would be great if people can share photos of them being used on Twitter and can commit translations of the posters to our GitHub repository so they're available for everyone.

What the posters say

Designing for users on the autistic spectrum

Do

Don't
View poster for the autistic spectrum
Designing for users of screen readers

Do

Don't
View poster for screen readers
Designing for users with low vision

Do

Don't
View poster for low vision
Designing for users with physical or motor disabilities

Do

Don't
View poster for physical or motor disabilities
Designing for users who are D/deaf or hard of hearing

Do

Don't
View poster for Deaf or hard of hearing
Designing for users with dyslexia

Do

Don't
View poster for dyslexia
Follow Karwai on Twitter and don't forget to sign up to email alerts.

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Dos and don'ts on designing for accessibility

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Karwai Pun is an interaction designer currently working on Service Optimisation to make existing and new services better for our users. Karwai is part of an accessibility group at Home Office Digital, leading on autism. Together with the team, she's created these ...

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Inclusion Strategies & Interventions

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When a course is in session, students need to see “evidence of engagement.”

During the 1st Week, prioritize presence and responsiveness:

Personal phone calls to each student pre-class or during the first week of school.

Video recordings that are shared out to introduce yourself and the course

Consider an opening activity; examples:

Use FlipGrid for students to introduce themselves to each other in video form. They can reply to each other this way too.

Hold a live session/open house for parents and students to discuss the course and procedures/expectations.

Be intentional about reaching out and asking those questions, such as ‘How’s it going?’ or ‘How am I doing?’

When students have confidence that you are present and paying attention, they will mimic that behavior and begin to work more independently.

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Looking for some effective team building exercises to bring your team together?

As a former leadership trainer and coach, I have run several types of team building activities for teams of several sizes - with participants ranging from entry level employees to C-level executives.

But with COVID-19 disrupting businesses all over, most teams have been forced to go remote.

So how do you run team building games for remote teams?

Don't worry!

You can always run virtual team building activities.

That's why I'm sharing this carefully designed list of 16 virtual team building activities and exercises. These engaging activities have always worked during my training programs and they will help you build a closely-knit and successful team!

Oh, and they've worked well for my own distributed team too!

The entire Startup Voyager team is remote and distributed across 4 countries!
And that's not all!
We've also added some tools, tactics and strategies you'll need to implement these team building exercises successfully.
If you are looking to build and manage your virtual teams instead, you can check this article: 25 Tips to Help You Manage a High-Performing Virtual Team.
This article contains:

(Use the links below to jump to any section)

Let's get started.

What is virtual team building?

Virtual team building is the ongoing process of bringing remote teams together. It'll help your team achieve deeper bonds by creating a collaborative environment that's similar to an in-office setting!
Why is virtual team building important?
The physical distance of remote work can quickly turn into emotional distance which in turn, leads to isolation. And when your employees feel isolated, they won't be comfortable working alongside their fellow team members!

This is why it's important to create a comfortable team environment that remote workers can rely on.

Virtual team building efforts consist of several carefully designed strategies, games and activities that are meant to bring more human interaction to virtual work. It'll help your team connect with each other - making them feel like they're actually part of a community!

And of course, a happier team obviously leads to higher employee retention!

17 Virtual team building games and activities

The difficulty with building chemistry in most remote teams is that you could be spread across time zones!

To tackle this, many of these activities and exercises can be performed by recording videos of the activities before putting them on a workspace channel where everyone can view them.

However, if you all can gather your team on a group video call together, then that's the perfect scenario!

This will make playing these games more fun since it's happening live, whether you're playing:

Virtual board games or different jigsaw puzzles

An online game of Pictionary or office trivia

Another icebreaker activity such as virtual karaoke

Additionally, getting on video call is even better for team chemistry.
Don't believe us?
A study by Remote.co found that, "87% of remote workers feel more connected through the use of video conferencing." So if you have the opportunity to use video alongside your team building efforts and icebreaker games - grab it! There are many free video conferencing tools available that would solve the purpose.

Here's a list of 17 fun team building ideas and engaging activities you can use to bring your virtual team closer:

1. A peek into each other's homes

This virtual team building exercise requires team members to virtually open their homes to one another like in House Hunters or MTV Cribs.

Jesse Sussman at MuseumHack thinks this is a "hilarious" way to get to know your remote team members and their personalities.

Each team member will take a short video showing off their home and some of their favorite things. This activity allows team members to get to know one another on a more personal basis, and can lead to cohesiveness and feelings of camaraderie.

This fun game may be better suited for smaller teams, but it's still a great team building exercise for any team looking to get the process started.

Another way this can be done is by allowing one team member to show off their home at the beginning of each week's work meeting. This way, you won't have to spend an hour looking at multiple people's houses at a stretch!

2. The desert island scenario

Many of us played similar icebreaker games like this in school.

In this virtual team building game, group members are given a scenario where they're stranded on a deserted island with seven objects - but they can only grab three.

Make these objects as obscure and challenging as possible so that your team members are forced to really use critical thinking and planning.

Examples of items are a bag of fruit and vegetable seeds, a pocket knife, a 100 ft rope, a bedsheet, a bucket, 2 liters of kerosene, pen and paper and so on.

Then split the team into small groups and allow them to collaborate on which items they want to pick. Once all discussions have finished, get onto a team video chat and discuss the results.

Activities and exercises like this force team members see each other as teammates and can lead to healthy competition and excitement within the team.

Such games and exercises also demonstrate how working together helps a team achieve better results, and can help virtual workers learn how to collaborate without being in the same room.

3. Personal facts guessing game

The personal facts guessing game is a great way to learn your team member's interests outside of work.

Here's a step by step guide:

In the first step, the manager asks each team member to share some personal facts with them.

These facts will then be compiled onto a document that's shared with each individual in the team. Next to each personal fact there's an empty column where each employee will have to guess which team member the fact belongs to!

Not only can this ice breaker game be hilarious, but it is a great way to develop successful team cohesion and camaraderie. Once all the guesses have been submitted, an answer key will be provided so that team members can see how well they guessed.

This activity can also take place live on a group video chat.

The facilitator will have the sheet open on a digital whiteboard on their computer and will share their screen while employees try to guess the answers. As each answer is guessed, the facilitator can follow along, putting answers into the empty column.

4. Weekly trivia contests

There's a reason Jeopardy's been on the air for 50 years: people LOVE trivia.

That's the same reason why teams flock to Water Cooler Trivia, a platform for automated weekly trivia quizzes. It's an activity employees eagerly anticipate each week.

Teams are emailed a Monday morning trivia quiz with responses due that night and results sent the next morning. That schedule is totally customizable.

Importantly, it's not a one-off event but a source of weekly fun and conversation for the team without any ongoing setup or maintenance tasks. The thrill of pub trivia without the two-hour time commitment and logistics.

The contests are super customizable, meaning you can decide the

Categories (Pop Culture, Current Events, Science & Tech, etc)

Difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard)

Timing (day of the week and the time for the quiz and results)

Region (if you have global teammates and want to exclude US-centric questions).

The best thing is that there's a risk-free 4 week trial to figure out if its a good fit for your team.

5. Picture sharing
Don't have time for a long problem solving challenge at the moment?
No problem.

Picture sharing activities help your icebreaker team bond in no time. It can facilitate laughter and surprising responses that will leave employees feeling happy and connected.

Set aside designated time, perhaps at the beginning of each meeting, for a team member to share one personal photo that is unrelated to work. This photo can contain pets, hobbies, gadgets, family members, etc.

Then have the team member explain the photo such as what's going on there and why they chose it.

Remember, allowing team members to share part of their personal lives makes teamwork more fun and can bring a new element of camaraderie to the workplace.

6. Bucket list- share your bucket list

A bucket list is a list of things you want to do or experience within your lifetime.

Naturally, each person's bucket list says a lot about them.
So, what better way to get to know your team members than by sharing their own bucket lists?
Each week, designate one person with the task of sharing their bucket list. You can specify the lengths of these lists and whether items already completed should be included.

Everyone listening can then spend a short amount of time discussing the bucket list- whether it's comparing similarities or simply asking fun questions!

By sharing bucket lists with people, you stand to learn a lot about their personalities and realise how you're very similar.

Who knows, maybe a coworker could help you clear a few things from your own list!

7. Building a storyline
Everyone loves a good story, right?
Building a storyline is one of the oldest and most fun team building activities.

Here's how it goes, step by step:

Get the entire group to virtually "form a circle" on a video call and start the process like this:

The first person begins the story with one opening sentence and another incomplete one. For example: "On Mark's first day at his awesome new job, his car broke down. At first, he felt helpless, but then he..."

The next individual completes the previous line and adds another incomplete sentence.

This way, each remote employee contributes until everyone has had a turn. Aim to develop a comprehensive story structure by the end of the game!

Not only does building a storyline force teams to use their creative juices, it also helps them listen to each other and improve team cooperation.

The best part?

These collaborative and listening skills are the building blocks for clear and effective communication in a remote team!

8. Show and tell

Most of us probably remember show and tell from elementary school.

But did you know that it can actually be an awesome team-building activity for virtual teams as well?

Basically, each team member gets one minute to show and talk about something they own or even something intangible! This could be anything - such as your favorite straws, a tug of war trophy or even a passion project!

After each turn, save some time for a conversation from the rest of the team (make sure you set a time limit for these or else it'll go on forever!)

By sharing these intimate possessions, you get a better insight into each individual which will help you develop strong team bonds and trust.

9. Simulated problems

When you want your remote team to step up and brainstorm on a problem solving challenge, use this experiential team building activity.

The simulated problems exercise goes exactly how it sounds:

First, create a tricky and challenging scenario related to your team's role.

For example, if you're handling a PR team, you could create a situation where the company has suffered from a scandal and needs to save face.

Ask them to strategize a press release and series of conferences step by step.

Make them answer questions like:

How does the firm save its credibility?

Do you come out with an apology?

How do PR priorities or your marketing plans change after this?

These engaging activities help participants build their decision making skills to learn about thinking out of the box. This way, they can prepare for an unforeseen situation while maintaining cooperation to increase team effectiveness.

Who knows?

It may even prepare you for a problem your business could actually face in the future!

10. A look at the future

This is a short and interesting activity.

Share an e-newspaper or magazine with the team, and ask them to mark ten headlines that could be related to the company in the future.

Headlines like "World's best place to work," or "How this company changed the world" are good examples.

This helps you to understand each member's goals and expectations from the company. You can even compare each choice to analyze differences in commitment or priorities!

11. The perfect vacation

This is another short activity that's great for developing your team's listening skills.

Participants are asked to grab a partner each.

For the next step, each duo gets on a personal call and tells their partner about their perfect vacation - if they had unlimited time and money.

After everyone is done, all the team members' get together on a call and try to explain their partner's dream vacation as accurately as possible!

Since you're describing your partner's vacation, you're forced to really listen and might even realise how both of you share similar interests.

12. Two truths and a lie

Two truths and one lie is a classic icebreaker activity.

Each team member presents three statements about themselves: two truths and one that is false.

The team can then take turns to recognise what's true and what the lie is.
After everyone has guessed, the speaker reveals their lie.

To make the game even more fun, add some healthy competition with a points system that's recorded digitally or by the manager with a pen and paper.

The person with the most correct guesses will grab the win!

13. Guess the emoji board
Everyone loves texting with emojis, right?
This is one of the shortest fun team building activities - making it great for quick breaks or post-meeting sessions.

Here's how it works:

Send a list of the players to all participants.

Next, give them five minutes to guess each person's five most used emojis.

After the five minutes are done, reveal the correct answers to the participants.

The person to recognise the most correct emojis is declared the winner.

For a fun twist, offer prizes to the top 3 best ones!

14. Never have I ever: Rated E edition

Most of us have probably played Never Have I Ever in college and know that it's not a game meant for work!

But don't worry, this version of the game doesn't involve alcohol or explicit stories.

Here's how this goes:

Create a list of general topics like "Never have I ever stepped on Lego" or "Never have I ever eaten an entire pack of marshmallows."

Everyone starts with five points, and loses a point for each activity they've done. For a virtual team, these points can be represented by fingers! Start with an open palm, and fold a finger for each point you lose.

The last person standing wins!

This way, you get to learn some fun new insights about your coworkers - all while engaging in some healthy competition!

15. Virtual book club

Reading is a hobby that's great for both your profession and daily life!

To encourage your remote workers to read, you can start a virtual book club.

To make sure the club runs smoothly, set up a few rules:

Each member must complete the assigned reading. If not, they're excluded for the next two readings or the meeting doesn't take place at all! While the latter sounds extreme, it actually works as a great accountability measure.

Start with shorter source materials. Not everyone reads rapidly, and you need to make sure that each employee can keep up. Start with short readings and as the club progresses, you can switch to a few long or challenging texts!

Not only does a book club help remote teams mingle and socialize, it also encourages them to engage in critical thinking and be open to differing opinions. These are all great qualities to develop effective communication skills and listening skills among remote employees!

16. Aliens have landed
A bit of imagination can make any creative problem solving activity more exciting!
Divide the whole team into smaller groups of three to four members.

The scenario is, aliens have finally landed on Earth- but they don't speak English.
So, each team must pick five symbols or pictures to best describe the company!

As the manager, check out the images and see if you realise any common themes or symbols. This helps you to understand what the remote employees feel about the company culture, while also improving effective communication and problem solving skills.

17. An icebreaker quiz game to get to know each other

QuizBreaker is a super fun way to keep a remote team engaged and connected. Players answer icebreaker questions and then have to guess each other's answers in automatically generated quizzes. Admins can set up the quizzes to go out via email at set times during the week.

An example quiz question might be: "Was it Emily or Sam who said the book that had the most impact on their thinking was Sapiens?" or "Was it Jade or Nathan who said their dream holiday destination is Iceland?"

With badges, levels and a weekly leaderboard - it's a great way for teams to get to know one another on a deeper level (even when they don't share an office). Remote teams all over the world use QuizBreaker to boost engagement and morale, including at companies like the New York Times and Google.

It also comes with a free 14 day trial.

If you you'd like to check out more virtual team building activities, Outback Team Building & Training offers four virtually-hosted options for your remote team.

24 Icebreakers to start conversations
Ever been unsure of how to start your team bonding activities?
Getting team members to open up in engagement team building activities can be as tough and awkward as navigating a minefield!

Luckily, that's what you have icebreaker games for!

An ice breaker game is an awesome activity to let team members dip their toes into the bonding experience without feeling awkward or insecure.

First:
You can start with 12 surface-level questions for your icebreaker team.
These questions are good for new virtual teams that are just getting to socialize and mingle with one another. These answers are opinion and preference-based, meaning employees are less likely to feel judged on their responses in the ice breaker game.

Next:

You can dig deeper with 12 carefully designed questions that require employees to step out of their comfort zone, open up a bit more and be vulnerable.

These questions allow team members to shed light on their goals, successes, struggles and needs. They also facilitate the real team building process and let individuals be open and honest with each other.

Let's get into it:

Surface level questions:

Do you want to stay the same age forever? If yes, what age would that be?

What is your favorite possession?

If you could grab one superpower, which one would you pick?

Are you a morning bird or a night owl?

Which season is your favorite? Fall, Winter, Spring, or Summer?

Do you prefer writing with pen and paper or digitally?

Do you prefer large group hangouts or smaller groups?

Would you prefer to go to the mountains or the beach?

If you could live anywhere on this planet without having to leave anyone or anything behind, where would you live?

What is the coolest vacation you have ever taken?

What's your favorite food?

Which historical figure would you want to meet?

Be vulnerable:

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

What do you want people to remember you for when you die?

What aspect of your personality is the most valuable to those around you?

Recall the best day of your life. Why was it the best?

Recall the worst day of your life. Why was it so bad?

If you could add or improve upon one characteristic of your personality, what would you add/improve?

Who has been the most influential individual in your life thus far?

When considering what makes you feel engaged and dedicated to work, what three characteristics do you look for in a work environment?

Name a few things in a work environment or situation that would compel you to look for a new/future job and leave?

What qualities and skills does a good boss/manager have in your opinion?

What is one of your biggest goals within your personal life?

What is your biggest accomplishment within your academic or professional life?

Now that you have the conversation going with the icebreaker activity, you can move to games and activities to build stronger team cohesion and healthy competition!

12 Other team building ideas

Sure, team building games and activities require a little more team effort, cooperation and commitment than any icebreaker activity.

However, once employees are open and honest and feel less awkward, they'll be more inclined to participate in games and exercises and continue putting efforts into building work friendships!

While the 16 earlier team building ideas were centered around having fun and playing games, these 12 ideas are centered around building deep connections with your team and really cementing your camaraderie:

1. Virtual team meetings

Team meetings are essential for any company - irrespective of if they're conducted in an office or if they're virtual.

While team meetings are often focused around work, it is important that virtual work teams recognise them as a group team building tool for building team cohesion, empathy and commitment.

Why?

Because team members who work remotely aren't able to take part in group team building breaks, such as coffee or lunch breaks like co-located teams.

To do this exercise, conduct a virtual meeting at the end of each month and ask three questions to each team member:

What's the one thing that has been going great lately?

What's the one thing that can be improved?

What's the one thing that's been going on with them personally?

Be sure that the team leader or manager also answers these questions, as it creates the feeling that all team members are equal.

Such questions not only let employees discuss and improve team effectiveness, but it gives virtual team members an opportunity to share a bit about their current lives and feel empathy for others on the team.

Give employees time to prepare for this beforehand so that they can give some thought to their answers. It may also be beneficial to set a time limit for each employee so that the meeting always moves forward and maintains focus on its priorities.

Fun tip: Suggest that each employee grab a coffee, tea or another beverage of choice to the online meeting so that it feels more like a coffee break!

2. Live remote office

Remember, virtual workers can have difficulty getting into their workflow and struggle with employee motivation.

Why?

Because it's hard for them to feel like they're actually part of an office - which affects their focus.

A live remote office area gives remote employees the office feel without physically being in an office.
Here's how it works:
At the beginning of the day, the first team member to clock in starts a video chat that any team member can join. As other members come online, they can join the video and essentially join the workspace.

The video chat room mimics an office as it's a place where team members can log in and start diligently working on their own tasks.
The benefit?
Distributed team members get to see their teams work hard in-person and are inspired to maintain focus and productivity.

3. Capture important company events

One of the downfalls of distributed teams is that virtual team members are unable to attend all company events.

This can leave virtual team members feeling left out, and can also make it difficult to see how different teams work and contribute to the company.
How can you fix this?
Take videos of company events and post them on the employee channel.
For example:
Say your company is going to set up a booth at an event to obtain more clients. Take a video of the event or provide a live video stream to show your virtual team members what is going on.

If you achieve a large success or make a successful team partnership at the event, be sure to celebrate it on a video call and congratulate the contributing team members on their hard work.

This will allow employees to see how their work contributes to the progress that is taking place in the company. It also brings an element of excitement and reward to the remote workplace, which can boost team effectiveness and morale.

However, this strategy doesn't just apply to large work events.

You can provide a post-call debrief with a client, a video recap of an in-person meeting, or make a video outlining important changes that are taking place within the company!

4. Movie night

This is a unique team building activity that's great for boosting morale.

When you gather your team for non-work related purposes, they tend to relax and open up more.

Hosting a movie night every so often is a fun way to get the team together to have fun outside of the virtual office.

You may be wondering:
"How do we do this when we live in different cities?"
Stream the movie through a video conference room and keep an instant messaging chat box open so team members can comment and make remarks during the movie.

Experiences like this give remote employees something to bond over and joke about later on. Plus it forces team members to take a little downtime and relax!

5. Coffee session

This strategy has proven to be successful in boosting employee motivation by showing them that you value their hard work.

Virtual team members rarely get to experience the office perks of a company-provided lunch, coffee or a team get-together.
How does a coffee session change that?
Each employee will be sent a small gift card to a coffee shop in their area or their favorite coffee shop.

Employees are then encouraged to get out of their home office and work remotely in a new upbeat environment for the day. Each employee will snap a photo of themselves working at the coffee shop and will post it to the team chat group.

This strategy can also be used to host your virtual meetings!

Team members designate a time to virtually meet while each of them is at their chosen coffee shop. This makes it feel as if a team meeting is being conducted at a specific location outside of the "common office."
Be sure to try this out once the COVID-19 pandemic is over!
6. Joint calendar

Employee calendars typically include work events and deadlines.
But what if work calendars included more than work-related information?
Remote employees often miss out on the opportunity to chit-chat about personal matters with other team members, such as family, personal events, and hobbies outside of work.
What if work calendars allowed team members to add personal events or a common goal to the agenda as well?
For example:

Monday's list of tasks and deadlines may conclude with something like, "Marissa's kid's first day of kindergarten," or Saturday may include, "John's family outing to the lake!"

There are several app options out there like Eventbot Calendar that have turned this joint calendar idea into a real thing.

Team members can use it to communicate personal motivating messages of congratulations, and may even realize that they have more in common than they thought.

It also lets people know when team members will be unavailable, which is beneficial for managing team effectiveness, communication and collaboration.

7. Send gifts to your fellow team members
Does this immediately sound pricey?
It doesn't have to be.

You can set a gift price limit and assign each team member a person to send a gift to. This can be arranged during the holidays or just for good fun.

For large teams that are dispersed internationally, encourage team members to buy something that is specific to their country and culture.

This will not only make the gift choosing and receiving unique, but it will provide a little bit of insight about the cultural differences - helping them develop empathy for each other.

Gift-giving not only gives employees something to look forward to, but it allows team members to form a deeper bond and feel thankful for one another.

8. A "random" Slack channel

Is your team using Slack or something similar to communicate?

Be sure to create a channel that is dedicated solely to random conversations and sharing.

Employees can share things like quotes, stories, and photos of their animals. This naturally provides large teams with conversation starters and allows teammates to get to know each other's personalities and personal lives better!

It also allows teams to build rapport, improve teamwork and form a deeper bond without having to delegate time to virtual team building ideas. Think of it as a unique team building activity that employees have constant access to!

9. Team building Slack extensions - Donut & Aloha

Donut is a Slack extension that can take virtual team building to a new level.

Donut pairs team members to get them talking every 1-4 weeks. These virtual meetings can last anywhere from 15-30 minutes and the aim is to get employees to each other on a one-on-one basis through non-work related conversations.
Want to make it even more effective?
Virtual team members that live in the same city can opt to grab lunch or coffee together instead of conducting a video call.

Donut makes distributed and group team building simple and can create some of those productivity-boosting relationships that we mentioned earlier!

Aloha is another slack extension that welcomes new employees and urges them to introduce themselves to the team.

For your remote team, you can use Aloha as part of your onboarding process. You can add them to local channels like #lunch or #movienight where members can discuss and decide which movie to watch on group movie night.

10. Outdoor scavenger hunt
Scavenger hunts aren't just for co-located teams.
These are outdoor team building activities that online teams can take on once the Coronavirus pandemic ends!
Here's how you do it:
Create smaller groups from your team and send each group of people an identical list of tasks to complete. Team members can then divide the tasks amongst themselves and stay connected while on the hunt through instant messaging apps.

Each task completion must be accompanied by a photo of the team member completing it. Have all teams gather and submit their photos to the company chat group.

Tasks can include things like:

Getting a stranger to do a yoga pose while wearing a blindfold, taking a photo of your reflection in something other than a mirror or window, balancing sheets of paper on your head throughout each task, and so on.

You can create the scavenger hunt yourself, or you can use an app like GooseChase to facilitate it.

Similar to the Desert Island Scenario, scavenger hunts boost communication and collaboration while also letting them delegate tasks and utilize each other's strengths and skills.

11. Meet in person
Want to really bond with your team?
Plan a team retreat!

This might not be possible right now during Covid, but when the pandemic is behind us, you should seriously consider this!

Team meetups may sound costly, but the networking, team cohesion and morale building that can result from them are priceless!

A team retreat can be a trip to an escape room, a small weekend in a central area, or it can be a large team building event that all the employees get to embark on.

Giving team members the chance to gather and communicate in person with their virtual coworkers is a great way to build strong team chemistry and make team members feel a sense of community.

For internationally distributed team members, cultural differences can be difficult to understand or grasp - however, meeting in person can change that and make your team stronger than ever!

A team retreat is also beneficial for the managers and owners of the company. They are able to gather a better sense of their employees' personalities and strengths, which will make it easy to improve teamwork and start open and honest conversations!

12. Online Office Games (Facilitated)

Sometimes, working with an event planner to run your activities can be a big win. For example, you as the organizer can participate and bond with your colleagues too.

One popular virtual team building activity of this type is Online Office Games.

Here is how it works:

The event is 90 minutes, and conducted with two hosts over Zoom

The games and challenges include virtual team trivia and "Can You Hear Me Now?", which is like Pictionary with a twist

You can do events with 5 - 50 people, or more for large groups.

The company that runs Online Office Games is TeamBuilding,com, and has a great list with more virtual team building activities too.

What do you need for virtual team building?

Virtual team building doesn't require much, but there are a few things you will need:

1. A leader

Designate a leader to facilitate the team building exercises, such as a project or team manager.
Why them?
Because they're a figure the entire team recognizes!

This way, nobody's going to wonder who's leading the activities or why they're there.

The manager should use their leadership skills for motivating people to participate and explaining the team building exercises in a clear manner. They will also be responsible for maintaining cohesiveness in the exercises and events that take place.

2. Clear-cut time limits

Set a time limit for virtual team building efforts.

It's important that each member gives their undivided attention when you gather your team for team building activities. This ensures that nobody comes across as uninterested or uninvolved. Additionally, you can't let these games go on for too long as you'll miss out on time to actually work!

3. Collaboration and screen-sharing tools

Considering that virtual face-to-face contact is essential to many of these activities and exercises, it's important to get a tool that lets you screen share and visually collaborate with team members online. That way, everyone can be present and contribute to virtual meetings.

8 Tools for virtual team building

The tools listed below are fantastic for virtual team building and can make the process seamless.

For Video Conferencing, Screen Sharing, & Telecommunication:

For Collaboration:
Interested in other tools that are essential for remote teams?
Don't worry, just go through this list here.

Who benefits from virtual team building?

Hundreds of thousands of companies across the Americas, Europe and Asia have gone remote because of Covid.

However, many people soon realise that managing a remote team comes with its own set of challenges.

Remember, as remote teams aren't physically working together, they miss out on the chance to socialize, mingle and build rapport with their fellow team members. This can leave employees feeling isolated - which will impact their teamwork, mental health and productivity!

Virtual team building is a fantastic way to boost empathy and cohesiveness to make virtual team communication and collaboration easier.

Whether your team is partially remote or fully remote, virtual team building is essential in building a strong team foundation for your company. In fact, a study by TeamBonding states that "65% of remote employees report that they have never had a team building session."
What does this mean?
This means a lot of companies are failing to do an easy task when they can have massive benefits of team building!

Here's what they miss out on:
For employees:
Virtual team building creates a support system for remote members. It can improve teamwork and the onboarding process by making new team members feel welcomed and excited.

Many of the games and exercises listed above give large teams a chance to even collaborate over tasks in a friendly environment, which is essential for innovation, productivity, and efficiency.

Collaborating on a problem solving challenge is also a great way to build rapport and an atmosphere of trust between team members - building stronger relationships and resulting in higher employee satisfaction.
For leaders and managers:
Fun team building activities are not only great for employees, they're fun activities for managers too!

Through unique team building games and activities you are able to better understand each employee's strengths and weaknesses.

This makes managing and delegating tasks more efficient. You are also able to build relationships with each employee and learn what each employee needs from you as a leader. This can greatly enhance your leadership skills over time!

Conclusion

Remote teams may not get the same face-to-face contact that collocated small teams get, but that doesn't mean they have to feel disconnected from one another!

Bit.AI reports that "97% of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project."

So you see, bonding is essential to form a cohesive unit!

Virtual team bonding increases employee motivation, efficiency and collaboration. It makes employees feel connected and valued, which in turn makes them highly dedicated to their tasks and the organization in general.
What else?
Team building activities allow virtual team managers to improve team leadership skills and recognise each employee's talents and skills, making for more efficient task delegation.

Managing remote teams can sometimes be tough for virtual team leaders - but it isn't impossible! And with the right team building activities, you'll have no difficulty getting everyone on the same page.

Want some more ways to improve the way you run your remote team?

Check out 15 Rules to Live By When You Run a Remote Team or 25 Tips to Help You Manage a High-Performing Virtual Team.
About the Author:
Peter Banerjea is Co-founder and CEO of Startup Voyager, a content and SEO agency that helps startups outrank top tier sites without backlinks or technical SEO. As a former leadership coach, he has delivered training and coaching engagements for companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s. His work has appeared in Entrepreneur, Inc, Huffpost, Fast Company, Lifehacker and many more major publications.

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17 Virtual Team Building Activities Your Remote Team Will Love

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Looking for some effective team building exercises to bring your team together? As a former leadership trainer and coach, I have run several types of team building activities for teams of several sizes - with participants ranging from entry level employees to C-level executives.

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Virtual team building has the power to make remote teams feel as tight-knit as on-site teams. This is especially true if you leverage purpose, vision, and enthusiasm to plan crowd-pleasing virtual team building activities.

Expert evaluations of remote work suggest that...

" . . . communication and shared identity within a team can mediate the effects of physical separation."

Strategically designed virtual team building activities provide communication while reinforcing a shared team identity. These online team games & activities can also mitigate the engagement-draining challenges of a remote or distributed workforce.

Experts who've studied companies found that "transformational and visionary leadership" can get remote engagement levels up to on-site engagement levels.

This post features icebreakers, tools, curated WFH employee care packages, and virtual team building activities you can implement or share with leadership to build strong remote teams.

Pro-Tip: Use "Command + D" to bookmark this list - we update it often with new content.

*Jump straight to our favorite fun virtual team building activities & games for remote teams

Popular Activities For Team Building Online In 2024

Online team building in 2024 can mean a variety of things. In the last few years, teams across the globe have learned about the different ways you can engage with your coworkers virtually.

Consistent collaboration between colleagues can help foster a stronger community while improving overall team performance and productivity. Consider creating a questionnaire on team building to gauge the interests of your team. This section is here to provide a quick guide to some of the most popular online team building ideas that SnackNation has come across.

If we missed any favorites that you and your coworkers enjoy, please let us know in the comments below!

Virtual Team Challenges

A virtual team challenge is designed to test each member of your team in fun and unique ways. These challenges may include puzzles, physical activities, riddle-solving, trivia knowledge, and a host of other skills that will push your employees to think critically and work together as a team.

Why this is a fun activity for team building online: The "virtual team challenge" will play on both the strengths and weaknesses of your staff, so there is not only an opportunity for your colleagues to enjoy some time together not discussing spreadsheets, but they can learn a bit about problem-solving and team collaboration in the process.

Sign up to customize your virtual event and try out a few challenge-based activities to see which one fits your group dynamic:

Get your thinking cap on, your Zoom lobby link ready, and bring your A-game. It's challenge time!

Quick Virtual Team Building Activities

Quick virtual team building activities offer a refreshing break from work to learn more about each other in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. These activities are perfect for warming up meetings, breaking the ice, or injecting a bit of fun into a virtual event. They require minimal setup and can often be done spontaneously, making them ideal for distributed teams.

Why this is a fun activity for team building online: These virtual fun activities for employees can significantly enhance team cohesion and communication without taking up too much time. They offer a refreshing break from work, allowing team members to learn more about each other in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. These activities also encourage creativity and can lead to improved problem-solving skills within the team.

SnackNation spoke with team leaders to learn more about the ways they incorporate remote team building activities. We compiled our favorites to maximize camaraderie online:

Rose/Thorn Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 1 minute per person

How-to:

Start your virtual huddle by having everyone share their rose (any positive that makes them feel grateful, happy, etc.) and also their thorn (a challenge). A rose can be work or non-work related along with its thorn.

For example...

Work Related:

Rose: I got an event partner to give me a refund today!

Thorn: A different event partner won't give me a refund.

Non-Work Related:

Rose: I found time to go for a walk today today.

Thorn: There was no time to go for a walk today.

"I work in Enterprise Marketing at ZipRecruiter and our entire team is now remote. We do a daily standup call with my manager and Rose/Thorn is how we start every virtual meeting. It is a quick way to start off a team huddle and get everyone on the same wavelength."

-Joanna Ericta, Senior Marketing Associate at ZipRecruiter

Crime Junkie Virtual Icebreaker

Adapted for: Clue Virtual Murder Mystery

Time: About 60 minutes

How-to:

Send out the Clue Virtual Murder Mystery link to everyone who plans on playing.

Using the app, your group will split into teams, examine clues, review case files, and channel their inner detectives.

Race against the clock to solve the mystery of who had the means, motive, and opportunity to murder Neil Davidson.

Your team will need to collaborate closely and communicate effectively to successfully solve the case.

If you DO solve the case in time: Celebrate the virtual team building victory and discuss what led to the "aha" moment when everything clicked.

If you DON'T solve the case in time: That's okay! Take this moment to do a group reflection on which challenges your team overcame and which ones stumped you.

Giving Points to Your Team

Bonusly is a software platform that employees use to send small bonuses to each other to recognize their everyday wins and successes. We use Bonusly internally at SnackNation, and one of our favorite parts of the software is that you can redeem your bonus points for a wide variety of gift cards, prizes, and awesome gadgets!

Here's how Ben Kuehnle, our Sales Development Manager, has introduced Bonusly to his department with positive results:

" Bonusly's reward catalog includes notable brands like Uber, Nike, Starbucks, Steam and many more. As awesome as the rewards might be, the real benefit of Bonusly comes from your team feeling appreciated and recognized for their hard work no matter they might be in the world."

-Ben Kuehnle, Sales Development Manager at SnackNation

Plus, they get to choose their own rewards, so you know they're getting something they'll appreciate.

Virtual Team Building Activity Templates

Virtual team building activity templates can be used to engage remote teams and boost morale. Short, sweet, and easy to use, these templates are a great place to get things started before a conference call or Zoom meeting. Each template offers a unique way to build camaraderie and increase collaboration.

Why this is a fun activity for team building online: With endless possibilities, you can use a pre-made template or customize your own to build out an icebreaker or online team activity that best suits your group's interests.

Get started with any of these pre-made templates:

Grab a template, send it out to your team, and watch the results roll in!

Holiday Themed Virtual Team Building Activities

This virtual team building event schedules a monthly team update where everyone can get together on a Zoom call and bond together over a holiday-themed game or experience. From a St. Patrick's Day virtual pub in March to a Halloween-themed game show - the activities (and fun) are endless.

Why this is a fun activity for team building online: It is constantly changing! While one month you may be celebrating AAPI Heritage Month with a workshop, the next month you might be kicking off Pride with LGTBQIA-themed trivia!

Looking for ideas coming up? Try out a few crowd-favorites:

Each month gives you and your team members a chance to take an hour off and let loose!

Virtual Recognition Wall

An easy way for distributed teams to bond is to encourage some good ol' fashioned peer-to-peer recognition using a "virtual wall" to showcase the amazing things your colleagues are doing. Based on the classic Wall of Fame, this idea utilizes your companies' employee recognition tool to great effect. Simply create the wall, send out a message to your team, and schedule some time at your next meeting to quickly review the shout outs!

Why this is a fun activity for team building online: Employees can post messages, photos, videos, GIFs, memes, and all sorts of fun ways to recognize their peers virtually. It can be scheduled during a meeting or asynchronously so that everyone has a chance to participate.

Start recognizing and watch your team light up!

Does your team need a pick-me-up? At SnackNation, we use Bonusly to help us improve engagement and build camaraderie with our distributed teams.

👉 Try Bonusly's recognition platform for free here to start appreciating the small wins that often times go unnoticed and foster a stronger company culture that delivers results.

Shippable Experiences

Get your entire team together to participate in a new experience! Choose from a huge catalog of interactive activities that range from cooking classes, art nights, happy hours, baking parties, and so much more. The idea behind a shippable experience is that each employee receives a team building kit sent directly to their doorstep.

All they have to do is bring the box and show up to a virtual party where they will be led through a series of activities.

Why this is a fun activity for team building online: These shippable experiences can give your team members a chance to try something new. Learn how to make dim sum, try your hand at dream catcher making, whip up a cocktail with a master mixologist, or take an hour off and enjoy a relaxing virtual happy hour together.

There are 100's of options to choose from, explore these kit-based classes by signing up for Confetti:

Get started unboxing some fun with a truly memorable experience.

Virtual Team Building Activities & Games
Virtual team building activities can be online games that you play on a shared screen or unique, shared offline experiences you can use to build common ground for future conversations.
👉 Get Your Free 2024 HR Trends Report

Online Team Games & Activities For Virtual Team Building

Whether you choose an online team game or an offline activity, you can rest assured that it will serve the goal of giving your team memory-making experiences they can share no matter how far apart they are.

Paid activity: Prices range from $5 per person to $150 per person

Time: 30 minutes to 3 hours

Best for: Teams of 2 - 1000

Formats:

Live hosted - Have an Elevent team member manage the event for you live.

Self-hosted - Host it yourself instead!

Virtual games can be an easy, convenient, and fun way to build great teams courtesy of Elevent. Aside from paying-as-you-go, you can even sign up for subscription plans for on-demand games and activities.

We love the large selection of virtual events that include activities and games focused on cooking, crafts and gardening, entertainment, food and beverage tasting, wellness, and learning and development events.

The games are supported across several popular platforms, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Google Meet, GoToMeeting, and BlueJeans.

Here are a few of our top picks from the Elevent platform:

🤔 Get to Know Ya Game Night: This get-to-know-your-team better is 60 minutes worth of unbridled fun! Hosted by the irrepressible Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist, Dennis Hensley this game is super-easy to set up and enjoy. Participants simply have their phones handy to send in answers as they watch the game on Zoom.

🔐 Learn Lock Picking: A super-handy skill to master if you ever find yourself locked out, it's also an amazing game to play on Elevent. The virtual event is hosted by a former security expert who's key function was - you guessed it! Breaking into buildings! Need we say more?

📼 REC: Escape the '80s VHS: It's quirky, unique, and fun! Your team will need to navigate the workout tape of a world-renowned 80s aerobics instructor, Simon Richards, to get clues into his sudden disappearance. He was last seen 30 years ago on a movie set filming for the said tape before he vanished for good.

Here's a quick sneak preview of this exciting game:

"This was such a fun experience - we had a group sitting together in a room at the office, and many people joining individually via Zoom. An hour full of laughs and team bonding, highly recommended." - Trustpilot

Here is another review from a past customer:

"The event was fun and the level of interaction between the team was impressive. We all had a great time getting to know each other. This is exceptionally good for remote teams. We will be back for the 2nd go at the event!" - Trustpilot

Paid activity: $8 - $49 per person

Time: 1 - 3 hours (Various Options)

Best for: Teams of 3 - 1,000+

Formats:

Self-Hosted: Their team will provide you with everything you need to effortlessly and successfully plan your virtual activity, plus dedicated support.

Virtually-Hosted: Their professional event hosts will take care of everything for you - kick back, relax, and join in on the fun.

Are you looking for unique and fun ways to keep your remote team engaged?
Outback Team Building & Training is currently offering 14 of their most popular remote team building activities in a virtual format specifically designed for remote corporate groups, some of our favorites are:
💎 Virtual Escape Room (Jewel Heist): Solve a "virtual" heist with your team of quick-witted detectives as you complete online puzzles, riddles, and virtual trivia. This virtually hosted team activity is ideal for groups that love solving complex problems and aren't afraid of a little friendly competition.

🔎 Virtual Clue Murder Mystery: Gather your remote team online and collaborate virtually to crack the case of a deadly crime in this virtual murder mystery online team building activity. Which team will be the first to solve the murder of millionaire, Neil Davidson?

🧠 Virtual Jeoparty Social: Work collaboratively with your teammates as you put your collective trivia knowledge to the test in this high-energy, and immersive virtual Jeopardy-style competition infused with a fun social twist.

🤔 Virtual Team Pursuit: Get your remote team together to compete in a series of online mental, physical, skill, and mystery challenges. The virtually-hosted team pursuit activity will allow you to get to know your colleagues better, and enhance communication skills while showcasing each individual's hidden talents.

🍻 Virtual Happy Hour Trivia: Sit down, grab a beverage, and partake in a challenging and fun online trivia competition at your favorite virtual pub, "Hamish McDuff's". Complete with a wacky and hilarious Scottish pub owner as your host, they'll lead you through an unforgettable happy hour.

"The Virtual Clue Murder Mystery event was so much fun - it was for a fundraising event and everyone thought that it was very well-done. Brynne did an amazing job of leading our team, making it a super easy set up, and being a resource. THANK YOU!" - Microsoft ( Virtual Clue Murder Mystery)

"The event was turn key and easy to follow. I liked that it wasn't overly complicated, but challenging enough to keep the team engaged. Having an event coordinator run the event made everything easy to deal with." - General Mills ( Team Pursuit)

Here's a quick 1-minute overview to show you how this virtual team building activity works:

Paid activity: From $10 a person+

Time: About 30 - 90 minutes

Best for: Teams of 5 - 500 (varies with activity)

Confetti is the only platform that gives you everything you need to plan memorable virtual team activities & events in just a few clicks.

It's free to sign up and only takes ~20 seconds. Once inside, it gives you a playground of dozens of ideas that you can click and customize in a matter of minutes - with instant quotes directly available on the platform! For every event, they provide a briefing that includes all the details organized such as a designed invitation, host information, and a place to insert your points of contact.

Confetti cherry picks and curates vendors, ready to deliver the best experience possible within the date and times you need.

Hundreds of companies trust Confetti with all their virtual team building needs, including: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, and Adobe.

" Confetti has taken a huge workload off my plate in planning engaging employee experiences... True lifesaver!" - Room

A big thanks to The Assist for sharing this idea! Here are some virtual happy hour tips:

Send all of your participants a Happy Hour box packed with goodies they'll enjoy during the virtual get together [cocktail kit provided].

Use a reliable video conference call service.

Get together with your team and take a trip to "Hamish McDuff's" virtual pub for some happy hour trivia.

Limit guests to 10 - 20 to boost engagement.

Have a variety of icebreakers prepared in case things get awkward. (Kisha found that doing a pet show-and-tell helped boost everyone's engagement.)

Pro-Tip: Celebrate St. Patrick's Day all spring with the Spring Fling Beer & Cheese Pairing Experience! The folks at Unboxed Experiences have crafted up an unforgettable team building event with special Irish beers, gourmet cheeses and engaging virtual entertainment so you can celebrate St. Patrick's Day with your whole team, no matter where you are.

Unboxed Experiences will work with you to deliver this 🍻 St. Paddy's beer kit 🍻 right to your employees' doorsteps prior to your virtual event. You can even customize your boxes with branded swag like pint glasses and koozies!

Let's Roam Virtual Team Builders are the hottest new thing in the online team building game right now. These interactive challenges are comprised of 5 rounds that include: Trivia, Fact or Fib, Costume Party, Impersonations, Riddle Me This, and many more game types designed to get your virtual team building memorable moments!

What makes Let's Roam Virtual Team Builders so unique is that you can play all of these online games through their innovative video conferencing platform that will have you bonding and laughing with your co-workers from anywhere in the world - pretty cool huh.

Here's a quick 1-minute overview of how it works:

The Go Game offers something we haven't seen anywhere else: a dedicated event host (MC and DJ!) that makes sure your event's energy and engagement stays sky high. Whether onboarding newly remote employees or cultivating culture across distributed teams, The Go Game is engaging teams from companies like Spotify, Google, LinkedIn, GoFundMe, YouTube, Amazon, Uber, Ernst & Young, Salesforce, Dell, and more.

You won't find your usual online team games here. Learn more at The Go Game!

Think more like:

Buzz-In Pub Trivia

The Giphy Challenge

Pictionary Drawing Contest

Live Polling and Voting

Karoke Battles

and more!

They've combined their unique brand of fun within a slick video conferencing interface and a hilarious host to bring remote teammates into the fold.

Paid activity: Free Trial

Time: 5 minute setup and 3 minutes per round

Best for: Teams of 7 to 100 (you can create multiple teams)

QuizBreaker is a virtual icebreaker game that helps remote teams connect & engage in a fun way. In each round, players have to guess 'Who Said What' - a simple way for your online team to bond over things they have in common. You can schedule virtual icebreaker quizzes to go out via email multiple times per week and track winners via a gamified leaderboard. It's used by hundreds of remote teams including at companies such as Google, New York Times & Microsoft to help build a positive company culture.

Paid activity: Free 4-week trial, then about $1 per participant per month

Time: About 5-10 minutes per week

Best for: Teams of any size (from 2 people to 2,000)

There's a reason Jeopardy's been on the air for 50 years: people LOVE trivia. That's the same reason why teams flock to Water Cooler Trivia, a platform for automated weekly trivia quizzes. It's a virtual team activity employees eagerly anticipate each week. Offices are emailed a Monday morning trivia quiz with responses due that night and results sent the next morning. That schedule is totally customizable. Importantly, it's not a one-off event but a source of weekly fun and conversation for the team without any ongoing setup or maintenance tasks.

Water Cooler Trivia sparks conversation and competition between colleagues asking HOW Alyssa knew THAT. The thrill of pub trivia without the two-hour time commitment and logistics.

The contests are super customizable, meaning you can decide the

Categories (Pop Culture, Current Events, Science & Tech, etc)

Difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard)

Timing (day of the week and the time for the quiz and results)

Region (if you have global teammates and want to exclude US-centric questions)

WCT has thousands of trivia questions along with features like an office leaderboard, the "funniest wrong answer" each week, the option for departments to compete against each other, and even a bobblehead trophy for your team to move to the winner's desk each week (when back in the office).

"Every time I see Water Cooler Trivia in my inbox I yell "YES!" My coworkers and I love it, and have discussions when the questions and responses come out. We have an entire Slack channel dedicated to Water Cooler Trivia." -Content Writer at G2

Bienvenue à Paris!

Woyago has created virtual tours that will allow you to travel to Paris for an hour or two! By combining storytelling and cheeky virtual activities, your team will learn hilarious French vocabulary, compete in ridiculous Parisian trivia, find their Parisian soul with absurd icebreaker questions, and learn quirky, insightful stories about Paris while connecting, interacting, and engaging with each other.

Between virtual wine and cheese tastings, live bike rides from the streets of Paris, French stereotype trivia, virtual team games, and French vocabulary that will make you laugh out loud, we promise that you'll end up obsessing over Paris...just like them!

Whether your team is familiar with Paris or not, they will connect, interact, and engage with each other for the duration of the tour. Woyago's lighthearted and comedic tone of the tours make this a very effective morale boost for virtual or hybrid teams of any size:

Take your team on an indulgent culinary journey that will satisfy their hearts and taste buds with the Charcuterie Board Experience. During this fun and enriching virtual team building event, you and your guests learn to build a show-stopping charcuterie centerpiece with a huge selection of provided smoked meats, artisan-made cheeses, finger fare and delectable spreads.

Making charcuterie boards as a team has never been easier!

The expert hosts over at Unboxed Experiences will easily show your group how to design your board with stunning charcuterie elements like meat rivers and a hand-made salami rose.

Like their other events, the Charcuterie Board Experience is fully customizable, so you can load this event up with company swag to blow your team away.

Are you ready for a team game online that is fun, challenging, and always gives you a few "WOW!" moments? Then you're ready for The Escape Game. Their virtual escape room will absolutely change your team's communication and bring them closer together! Since it's all done virtually, it works for any team big or small, and teams that may be spread across the country or the globe!

The Escape Game Remote Adventures are one of the most unique and fun virtual team building experiences out there. Not only is it the perfect analog for the workplace but your team will have so much fun making lasting memories together through this awesome, one-of-a-kind experience. It's as simple as getting on a video call where your team will communicate with a host and direct a game guide with a live camera feed of the room. Find clues, solve puzzles, and (hopefully) escape!

Here's a quick 1-minute overview of how it works:

Nothing brings a team together like a scavenger hunt: the fun, the interaction, the problem solving, the friendly competition - it's the perfect team builder. With Scavify, you no longer need to physically be together to bring all the elements of that perfect team builder together.

"My objectives were to engage my Leadership remotely without having to be on another Zoom/Teams/Skype call. Even though our meetings remotely have been productive, we have missed the opportunity to show our personalities. It has been a very stressful time and using Scavify was a great way to have fun and be a little silly. At the same time I was able to add some tasks related to business plans and concerns. A really great exercise!"

Through a mobile app and/or browser, individuals and teams can participate in a virtual scavenger hunt app that has them snapping photos, taking videos, answering questions, scanning QR codes, providing feedback and more from the luxury of their own home. Better yet, the Scavify app provides real-time interaction features like a leaderboard and photostream to keep remote teams connected during this time. The ability to leave the hunt open for a week (or longer) allows colleagues to compete on their own time when it works best for them.

If you have an energetic team that enjoys shaking things up, they'll love the novelty of the Ice Cream Float Experience offered by Unboxed Experiences. During this fun (and often funny) virtual teambuilder, guests will mix together ice cream ingredients in a zip bag (everyone will receive an all-inclusive Ice Cream Float kit beforehand), then shake everything up over some ice and rock salt until...voila, homemade ice cream!

A guide leads the virtual team building event, sharing fun trivia about the history of the ice cream float and keeping everyone hyped up with a playlist of popular music to shake along to. Once the ice cream is done, and everyone has danced around a bit, guests will cool down with an ice cream float. Each Unboxed Experiences kit is customizable, so you can include swag and other gifts to put a smile on your guests' faces.

Atlassian's learning circle templates make it easy to plan a virtual educational activity about a topic relevant to your team's work.

Pro-Tip: Don't let the logistics of throwing a virtual team building activity slow you down. Have monday.com track budgets, store receipts, and document participants while you focus on what actually matters: having fun.

Players upload selfies and then add sketches and captions. The goal is to guess which captions and sketches were made up and which ones the person pictured actually added themselves.

Priority Experiences offers a comprehensive and unique set of online team building activities built around their collection of shippable experiences.

Steps:

1. Choose your experience - they'll match you with the right experience based on budget, goals, and interests.

2. Logistics - They'll take care of all the details so all you and your team have to do is grab your kit from your doorsteps and show up!

3. Build virtual team camaraderie! - Their shippable experiences can be structured to your liking whether you want a host to lead you through a guided tasting or you simply want to relax with your colleagues with a glass of wine or a new beer!

Hop on this platform and play a variety of card games synchronously with your team during game night. Doing something as commonplace as playing cards with your remote team helps cultivate the sense of normalcy that makes distance disappear.

Team Building Hub is the corporate events arm of The Escape Game and is a one-stop-shop for fun remote team building activities. Team Building Hub offers team building events online, at 24 retail locations across the US, and they can also come to you. The games are engaging, the hosts are enthusiastic, and booking is surprisingly simple.

If past virtual team building games have left your group unenthused, book a Team Building Hub event - your team will love it!

Pro-Tip: Team Building Hub works with thought leaders like Lee Cockerell, Donald Miller, and the John Maxwell Team. Ask about pairing your experience with one of their mini-courses on communication or problem-solving.

As soon as one person purchases a game pack, your team can choose any screen-sharing platform and start playing games that test your wits ( Quiplash), let you ask crazy hypothetical questions ( Split the Room), create wacky word clouds ( Word Spud) and so much more.

Tip: Pick a list of games and rounds you're going to play before the meeting, or you might end up playing for two hours!

Team Bonding is a trusted leader in the team building category with over twenty years of experience bringing fun and excitement to teams with a growing catalog of team building activities, games, and experiences.

Paid activity - Talk to the team to receive a custom quote

Time: Activities range from 1 hour to 6 hours

Best for: Teams of 10 - 100

They work with you to plan the perfect day, from one-hour team lunches to full-day team building extravaganzas. With virtual and in-person options, any organization can utilize Team Bonding to engage with their peers and encourage team members to bond over a new experience.

"Thank you for facilitating the Jeopardy show yesterday for our group. We received very positive feedback both from our external client and internal participants. Four of them took the time to write us thank-you notes for organizing the event." - Ernst & Young

They say "No More Boring Game Nights" They have a library of games packed with everything from social deduction mystery games, brain-busting trivia, buzzer-beating game shows, to the "Are we really this clueless?" escape rooms, and more. Their games are built for the super competitive and the laid back, so no one is left out.

One of their most talked about features is the vibing music that sets the tone for the whole session.

Get competitive with your teammates as you race each other in this sophisticated simulator. Just purchase the game and use Steam's Remote Play function to start playing with your team over the internet.

The Deserted Island Scenario

Join your virtual meeting and give everyone the bad news: They've been stranded on a deserted island.

Counter with the good news: They get to choose three items from a handy list of survival tools.

Provide a list of tools for everyone to choose from. The longer the list, the more interesting the online team game will be. You also don't have to design your list to be sound from a survivor's standpoint; you simply want everyone to think creatively.

Put your meeting on hold or pause while each person gets ten minutes to select their three items.

Resume the meeting and have everyone share which items they picked and also explain why. Allow time for each speaker to answer questions about their selections.

Now give everyone an additional five minutes to decide if they want to change any of their items based on what they just heard from their teammates.

Ask anyone who changed their list to explain why.

By the end of this virtual event idea, everyone will find themselves more open to new ideas and thankful for new perspectives-A great idea to introduce at your next virtual holiday party!

Marco's Laugh Events provides memorable virtual team building activities that specialize in comedy experiences for groups who want to inject a little laughter into their day.

Easy to set up, fun to participate in, and ideal for remote teams - a virtual comedy show brings the wit and creativity of the comedy club to your team in a professional (yet lively) Zoom setting.

Choose from any of their wonderful comedy shows including:

Stand Up Comedy (30 Minutes): Clean, corporate-ready acts delivered to you by some of New York City's best stand up comedians. You can choose one or two comedians to deliver sets that will impress!

Juggling and Jokes (30 Minutes): Part comedy, part juggling. You won't know what to expect in this multifaceted comedy show. Unpredictable, fast-paced, and guaranteed to show you some things you've never seen (or heard)!

No Work Custom Comedy Hour (60 Minutes): A custom comedy experience for virtual teams looking for something special. Help craft your ideal comedy show with access to a roster of comedy performers.

Developed by expert online team game designers and a team with 5+ years developing unique virtual group events.

Schedule your game for anytime you want.

Built in timer so you can compete against other teams.

After you find the GOLD, download your teams Completion Certificate with Team Name and Team Time

We recommend splitting your company into small teams of 4-5 people with a team captain for each. Provide each team captain with an access code to Treasure Mountain. Online teams will then race through the riddles and challenges to be the fastest group to escape and get bragging rights at the next virtual all hands meeting!

The Offsite Co offers the most comprehensive and unique set of virtual team building events and games out there. They focus on designing a series of activations to help their clients reach engagement goals while employees are working remote.
Every event is customized based on your company culture.
They take care of all of the online team game design, logistics and planning and even provide the most fun and professional facilitators we have encountered.

Here's a quick 1-minute example of a Virtual Lip Sync Karaoke event through The Offsite Co:

Virtual Icebreaker Activities, Games, & Ideas

Icebreakers for remote teams are activities you can do at the start of a virtual meeting to create quick, personal connections with your co-workers. Virtual meetings can sometimes start with a few minutes of stiffness or awkwardness. Use any of the icebreakers below to overcome that awkwardness and conduct effective remote meetings.

👉 Free Mindfulness Bingo Activity

Department Quiz Battle Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 5 minutes per person on each team

How-to:

Determine (or challenge) which departments will be duking it out in a virtual team building trivia battle

Create a list of 10 trivia questions using a Google Form or sign up for Trivia Games

Send out the questions to both departments with a deadline for submissions

Zoom Meeting Review:

In Trivia Games, a live Quiz Host will guide contestants through 3-4 exciting rounds of trivia on Zoom.

Each team records its answers on a digital sheet provided by the host. Points are counted in between rounds with the final round producing the winners!

Asynchronous Review:

Send out your trivia quiz to each department email and/or Slack

Set a deadline for submission and then tally up the results!

You can also customize each battle to display player superlatives like:

Who had the funniest answer?

Who had the quickest answers?

Who scored the most points for their team?

Which team had the strongest participation?

Share the company leaderboard and crown that week's department champion 👑

GIF Wars Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 1-2 minutes per person

How-to:

Using a virtual team building & recognition tool like Bonusly, have each person take a second to send a shoutout to someone who has really helped them out or gone above and beyond for the team recently.

Make sure to add a GIF to each shoutout

Go around and vote on who added the best GIF (think Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity)

Pro-Tip: You can make this a recurring virtual activity in Bonusly by choosing 'GIF War' themes for each week like: movies, sports, dogs, cats, etc...

Quick Virtual Icebreakers

Best for: Starting meetings, closing meetings, Monday morning check-in calls

Time: About 15 minutes

How-to:
Choose one of these quick virtual team building activities to spice up your next group meeting:

Snapshot Virtual Icebreaker

Source: monday.com's free virtual team building template

Time: About 5 minutes

How-to:
Ask everyone to use their phones to take a picture of something.
The something could include...

Pets

Kids

Desk space (Yes, even messy desk spaces)

Refrigerator

Outfit

Closet

Have everyone upload their pictures to a shared online whiteboard or document to create a digital collage of everyone's snapshot.

Spend a little time complimenting the pics or asking questions.

The final product may look something like this:

(Images courtesy of the SnackNation State of the Executive Assistant Facebook Group)

Escape Room Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 60 minutes or less

How-to:

Choose your adventure below:

If you're going to escape, you HAVE to work together and communicate virtually.

Once you log onto the Zoom call your host will help you through the adventure while your Game Guide will be your eyes, ears, hands, and feet inside the online team game.

With the help of your Guide Game and your digital dashboard, you and your team will find clues, solve puzzles, and complete your mission.

Whether or not you complete your mission in time, the leader will be able to review what went well and what didn't go so well during the virtual activity. The debrief after your online experience will no doubt be filled with lots of laughs and lessons learned.

Ice Cream Float Virtual Icebreaker

Source: Unboxed Experiences by City Brew Tours

Time: About 30 minutes

How-to:

Connect with a private virtual event planner (like Unboxed Experiences) who will arrange for kits to be sent directly to all of your guests.

On event day, a virtual guide will show everyone how to make ice cream in a bag (seriously, it works!).

Guests will dance along to popular songs (featuring favorites like "Shake Your Groove Thing") as they shake their ice cream ingredients until everything is perfectly frozen.

Finally, guests make their own rootbeer, orange soda, or cherry soda float to sip on as you transition to your next session.

Pro-Tip: Is your workplace big on work/family balance? This is one of those virtual team events that employees can get their families involved in. Kids especially love shaking up their ice cream, and your guests will appreciate having time to hang out with their families during the work day. Unboxed Experiences also has other virtual team activities to choose from like their Tea & Mindfulness Experience, Beer Making Kits, & more!

Getting To Know You Virtual Icebreaker

Source: Assembly (free up to 10 users)

Time: About 5 minutes per person

How-to:

Each team member you invite to Assembly can answer curated icebreaker questions that have been carefully researched to elicit fun learnings and build trust during a 5-minute team activity. Players can skip any question they don't want to answer.
Some of our favorite questions to inspire you:

💪🏼 What would your superhero costume look like?

🎶 What would you choose as your top 5 songs of all time?

🤔 What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

🍕 If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

🏴‍☠️ You're forming a team of treasure hunters. Which job would you assign to yourself and why?

During your next team meeting, spend a few minutes inside the Getting to Know You channel within Assembly to review each other's answers. These are also automatically sent out via email and can be scheduled to your desired timing, volume & frequency.

You can also try setting up themes for each week based on upcoming holidays or company trivia to create a fun virtual team building experience personalized for your team.

Pro-Tip: Your Assembly Getting to Know You Channel could look something like this:

Open Mic Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 10 minutes

How-to:

Give everyone a heads up that they will have about a minute at the beginning of the meeting to take the virtual stage.

Ask them to find or write an icebreaker joke, read a poem, sing a song, play the mandolin-anything they want!

Start your meeting with these glorious performances.

Allow ten seconds in between each for a rush of snaps and applause.

Squad Squabble Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 45 - 60 minutes (plus prep)

How-to:

Prep:

Find a virtual team building software to host the online game like Virtual Coworker Feud by Confetti. Sign up for FREE to learn more.

Build your teams.

Determine your questions (think about funny inside virtual office jokes).

Solicit answers from colleagues either through email or a survey.

Time to Play:

After the online team game is set up, determine a host or roll with one of the experts from Weve!

Read the first question - the first team to buzz in gets to answer. For every answer on the board, they collect points.

If they receive 3 strikes (wrong answers!), control goes to the other team to determine the board.

Repeat the steps until you have a winner - the team with the most points wins the game!

We played a round of Squad Squabble ( Virtual Coworker Feud) with our friends at Design Pickle to show you how this virtual icebreaker works... Still have no idea how 11 people said "Microwaving Fish" as an answer...

Trip To Paris Virtual Icebreaker

Source: Woyago Virtual Trip To Paris

Time: About 60 minutes

How-to:

Select from Woyago's catalog of laugh out loud authentic French activities:

Wine and cheese tastings

Live bike rides from the streets of Paris

French trivia and questions

Virtual get-to-know-you activities

French vocabulary... and more!

Grab your virtual passport and beret to experience the magic of Paris from your desk!

"Big Talk" Virtual Icebreaker

Source: Outback Team Building

Time: About 10 minutes

How-to:

Start virtual meetings with a few minutes of organized "big talk" about global events and news.

Before the meeting, send out a current news story for the team to read.

At the start of the meeting, give everyone a minute to share their thoughts on the story without interruption or commentary.

Set aside 5 minutes after that for open group discussion.

Dance Party Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 5 minutes (or the length of your chosen song)

How-to:

Tell everyone about the awesomeness that's about to happen.

Do a quick sound check to make sure everyone can hear the host's music.

Start your jam. (If you can't decide, use an icebreaker tool like Random List to get a random selection.)

Dance and probably laugh.

"Do You REALLY Know Your Team?" Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 10 minutes

How-to:

Before your next meeting, ask all your teammates to answer three "about me" questions.

For example...

If you could eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?

What's your favorite vacation spot?

If you were an animal, what would you be?

What's your favorite movie?

At the meeting, share the answers and have your teammates try to pair the answers with the right person.

Once everyone has guessed, reveal who gave what answer.

If the results are interesting/surprising, have your teammates explain - It'll get people laughing and learning more about each other.

Boom - instant virtual team bonding!

Critical Thinking Virtual Icebreaker

Time: About 2 minutes per person

How-to:

Before your meeting send out a discussion topic question for your team to answer in your virtual office dashboard.

Start your online meeting by posing a lateral thinking question to the group like:

"If you were alone in a dark cabin, with only one match and a lamp, a fireplace, and a candle to choose from, which would you light first?"

"A boat has a ladder that's ten feet long, and hangs off the side of the boat, with its last two feet submerged in water. If the ocean tide rises five feet, how much of the ladder will be underwater?"

"There are a dozen eggs in a carton. Twelve people each take a single egg, but there is one egg left in the carton. How?"

Give everyone 30 seconds to answer.

Have everyone share their answer on a remote working platform like monday.com

Spend about one minute discussing the differences in your answers and what you each learned from one another.

Fact Recall Mission Virtual Icebreaker

Source: Fact Recall Mission

Time: About 7 minutes

How-to:

Each team member invited to play Fact Recall Mission introduces themselves and gives a "fact" about them; usually with a prompt, such as favorite vacation destination, most likely to see in concert, most binge-worthy show they recommend, etc.

Keeping the facts tucked away to memory, each player will try and recall who said what during the introductions.

A recommended show is a great option because everyone learns something about the person and also gets a great recommendation.

Vacation memories and concert bucket lists are fun and a great throwback to the good times.

Do the players in the group know each other too well? It's still a great opportunity to play and use it to tell something about yourself as a warm-up. Everyone needs a new book recommendation or Netflix binge idea.

"One Word And I'm In" Virtual Icebreaker

Time: Less than 1 minute per person

How-to:

Start your virtual pow-wow with a Work-From-Home-Wellness Box and by having everyone pick one word to fill in the sentence "I'm ______ and I'm in"

For example...

"I'm stoked and I'm in"

"I'm ready and I'm in"

"At SnackNation, we start virtual meetings with the "One word and I'm In" activity. It's quick, breaks the ice, and gives a pulse on the group's energy.

Some common ones on our team are "I'm caffeinated and I'm In," "I'm fired-up and I'm In, "I'm a-little-bit-tired-but-ready and I'm In." Our team likes to get creative with the hyphens."

-Victoria Holbrook, Brand Marketing Manager at SnackNation

"Name That Emoji Song Title" Virtual Icebreaker

Time: 3 minutes per person's turn

How-to:

Start a group messaging chain either through phone or your employee recognition software platform of choice - like Nectar.

Determine who goes first and put a timer on your phone for 3 minutes.

The first person looks at their last played song and then "attempts" to use only emojis that give hints to the title of the song.

Everyone else takes turns guessing the name of the song until the timer runs out.

At the end of the 3 minutes, reveal the song if no one guessed correctly and share why that was your last played song.

These have been some standouts from our team at SnackNation:

🐴❌🏷️ - "A Horse With No Name" (America)

🙈💡💡 - "Blinding Lights" (The Weeknd)

❌⛰️🔼✅ - "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)

🌊👀 - "Ocean Eyes" (Billie Eilish)

💁‍♀️4️⃣🎄👉👤 - "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (Mariah Carey)

Offline Team Games & Activities For Virtual Team Building

Offline Book Club

Start a book club and have everyone do the reading independently and offline. Have everyone keep a log of their thoughts and impressions as they go. You can have your final discussion by exchanging snail mail letters, hopping on a conference call, or meeting in person.

Remote Scavenger Hunt

Since you won't be able to plant items for people to physically find, your best bet is creating a list of subjective, goal-based items.

Here are some example prompts:

Find the item that makes you feel the happiest.

Find an item attached to a powerful memory.

Find your favorite way to connect to others.

Have teammates log and photograph their answers. Eventually, the team can share these logs via email or snail mail.

You can also try pre-planned virtual scavenger hunts. Scavify provides a variety of app-based, in-home scavenger hunts everyone on your team can share with their significant others or families.

Offline Employee Wellness/Fitness Challenge

Have everyone on the team vow to complete a fitness challenge. The outdoor team building challenge might be completing a certain workout every day or even achieving a specified fitness goal. As you all complete the challenges independently, you'll know you're not truly alone.

Pro-Tip: Push your employees to live up to their wellness goals with an incentivized employee wellness challenge hosted through a platform like YuMuuv. Whether it's achieving a certain number of steps per day or practicing weekly meditation, YuMuuv makes it easy for companies to set up a corporate wellness challenge.

Daily Gratitude Commitments

Have everyone on your team commit to completing daily gratitude journaling for a month. Doing this activity alone will make you feel amazing, but knowing your teammates are (figuratively) by your side will maximize your warm fuzzies.

Solve a Mystery

Solve Hunt A Killer mysteries independently. Get everyone on your team a 6-episode Hunt a Killer subscription. They'll all receive a package full of clues to work through to solve a mystery. The exercise will be even more fun knowing you're all solving the same case together.

Pro-Tip: If solving mysteries is your cup of tea, then we recommend checking out Clue Murder Mystery by Outback Virtual Team Building. Will your team be the first to solve the murder of millionaire, Neil Davidson?

Start a Pen Pal Program

Match everyone on your team up with an official pen pal. If this activity feels old fashioned, then own it. You and your pal can pretend you're writing in Victorian England or during the American Revolution.

Daily Writing Prompts

Provide everyone with a daily writing prompt for an entire month. (Mailing out journals would be a nice touch if you have the budget!) Later on, you can get together (in-person or online) to discuss what you created.

Collaborative Craft Project

Select a collaborative craft project, such as a mosaic of painted rocks or a paper quilt, and ask everyone to create one piece independently. When you can get together to assemble the larger project, you'll be delighted to see how all the individual displays of creativity come together.

Open-Ended Instructions Challenge

Challenge everyone to create something useful for the office using only items from their recycling bins and kitchen pantries. Have people share photos and descriptions of their completed items.

Virtual Team Building Tools, Apps, & Software

Virtual team building tools are typically softwares that empower companies to create and customize unified digital workspace experiences that promote transparency and collaboration within remote teams.

Fun Slack Apps For Online Team Games

Slack apps for virtual teams are fun extensions that can be used to help build remote employee culture and engagement. Since employees likely use Slack every day, the platform provides an ideal touchpoint for other programs and initiatives you want to try.

These apps seamlessly integrate into Slack to make your life as easy as possible.

Here are a few more trusted apps for remote team building:

Expert Advice For Planning Your Next Virtual Team Building Event

There are a few key reasons why planning even a small team building event with your remote team can have a positive impact on morale.

For example...

When remote workers feel their excitement slipping, a virtual team building activity can help them rekindle their passion by exposing them to excited co-workers.

When remote workers are craving more autonomy, a virtual team building activity can help them gain trust from their managers and peers.
So what's the overarching secret to unlocking the benefits of virtual team building?
It's commitment-commitment and passion from a strong leadership team.

For managers looking to set up their next virtual team activity, SnackNation spoke to a few team leaders to understand what is important during the planning phase of your event.

Based on their feedback, it is recommended to follow these tips and strategies to ensure your event succeeds.

1) Check Your Connection

Make sure your internet connection is stable before your event so that you are not risking any delays, audio problems, or video issues. Testing out your setup ahead of time can save you valuable time when you have team members showing up your your Zoom call or video conference link looking to get started.

2) Determine a budget

While there are many online games available to your team that are free, your team manager may want to invest in an event host to run your online event effectively.

These team building hosts add comedy to your event while also making sure the activity runs smoothly by moderating the game for you and your colleagues. If you are a manager and are tired of leading every single meeting, working with a dedicated event host can take the pressure off you and set up your event for success.

3) Send out invites for RSVPs

Busy teams will find it hard to schedule time off to fit in a virtual event. That is why sending out an invite a week or two ahead of time will ensure team members can reserve that time on their calendars to show up and disconnect from their current work responsibilities.

The best online team games involve players who are engaged and not worried about their work or other tasks on their plate. Receiving RSVPs will also confirm that your event has enough players to participate since some virtual games and activities will require a minimum number of players.

People Also Ask These Questions About Virtual Team Building Activities

Q: Why do virtual team building activities work?

Q: What can I do to spice up my next virtual meeting?

Q: How do I get started with a virtual team building activity in 2024?

Q: What is virtual team building?

A: Virtual team building is using technology, emotional intelligence, and management skills to keep teams connected when they can't physically be together. Virtual team building comes in many forms, but the effective programs make employees forget they're not sitting in the same office.

Q: How do you celebrate with virtual teams?

Q: How do you bond with a remote team?

Q: What are some virtual team building challenges?

A: Some virtual team building challenges include unreliable technology, the absence of physical and social interactions, difficulty scheduling meetings across time zones, a lack of engagement and participation, and the false assumption that virtual events can be planned and executed the same way as in-person events.

Q: How can I keep my remote workers engaged?

Q: How do I know if my virtual activity was successful?

A: You'll know if a virtual activity was successful by surveying your participants. Have them provide honest feedback and incorporate that feedback into future events. You may also be able to gauge your virtual activity's success by observing engagement and participation during the event.

Q: Where can I find a virtual team building activity for my remote team?

A: Find a virtual team building activity in our comprehensive roundup of virtual icebreakers, games, and activities. We've outlined activities to fit any need or situation. Find quick icebreaker activities to complete at the beginning of virtual meetings, in-depth games to play online as a team, and even long-term team activities that require little or no technology.

Get Your Free Conference Call Bingo Game Here

In Conclusion...

Virtual team building activities & events have the power to transform your remote team members, making them feel connected, engaged, appreciated, and happier at work.

There are plenty of reasons to make that goal a priority. Given healthy attention and team building, remote teams can become just as effective as on-site teams while also bringing along added benefits, including the capacity to handle rapidly changing business environments.

We hope the information we've provided has left you feeling informed about what it takes to plan a successful virtual team building game and also empowered to see what works for your own unique and special team.

We can't wait to hear your virtual team building success stories!

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57 Virtual Team Building Activities For Your Remote Team In 2024

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Featuring icebreakers, tools, and virtual team building activities you can implement or share with leadership to build strong remote teams.

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Google Classroom:            Being Clear is Kind

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Google Classroom:            Being Clear is Kind

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Be intentional when organizing how you push out your materials in Google Classroom.

Use visual hierarchy, folders, topics, digital bulletin board, EMOJIS extensions to tag assignment types, etc...

Limit the number of times you post or assign work each day.

Consider creating a GoogleSite as your class homepage to host class materials, digital word walls, calendar of assignments, etc...

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Dear Teachers,

Last week, the two of us had a conversation about school leaders who would be leading and making decisions related to the spread of COVID-19. That conversation turned into a set of guidelines that we published first with Global Online Academy and later with EdSurge.

We have tried to be clear about our intent to share our thinking, since some schools have very different priorities than the ones we have been projecting. To be clear, some school leaders serve children who depend on their institutions for safety, food and other basic human needs. Those children and their needs should always be the priorities of the schools that serve them-not some online version of education.

We are continuing to share, therefore, because we are also observing schools preparing or acting upon school closure plans for one reason or another. And once those plans are in place, teachers are often being asked to perform their responsibilities in a new way. We're thinking about those teachers (about you) who are beginning, or are mid-flight in, some new journey. We're not debating the merits of that journey for now-just acknowledging and looking to support the people who will be teaching online if their schools decide to go that route.

Simply put, if you're asked to teach online, we encourage you to find ways to be present for your students. Your presence is all that many of them have ever needed, and this does not change if you are teaching from your living room or local library.

When you teach online for the first time, the first thing you'll miss is the chatter of your physical classroom. Or maybe the hushed breath, ever so subtle, when you enter the class and change the dynamics, the air pressure even. No, you'll miss most the quicksilver comedy, the way words twist into grins and spill out as jokes. You probably wouldn't think that you would miss the smell or the slouches or the occasional snuck-in naps...

But you will.

You'll miss looking at all of your students at once, the sound of them laughing all at once, the way it feels when understanding cracks open and a yawn becomes an "ah" becomes an "aha."

So when you're asked to teach online-against your will, as many of us may soon be-we would first say: hold on to all of that subtle input, the stuff that helps you know a class is alive and thriving. Then, from the first time you send an email to the class or enter an online forum with a class, look for it. Listen for it. Acknowledge it. Enjoy it.

In the first online course we designed and taught together, one of us had never taught in a strictly online environment before, and the other had only designed asynchronous online learning experiences (i.e., self-paced experiences with very little instructor engagement).

As we started to plan our teaching, we fell into old habits. We organized and sequenced our materials. Then we created phases of learning that would build on top of each other and ultimately create what we hoped was a coherent experience, an experience that would raise the understanding and skill level of everybody involved, including the teachers.

Once we understood the what (the curriculum), we started to think about the how (the connection). This is where things got interesting, and quickly. We were not ever going to be in the same room with our students. We had not ever met most of them. They were relying on us.

And we were expected to deliver instruction. Whatever that means.

"To deliver instruction" is an awful phrase when you're teaching face-to-face. It can be even more nefarious when you're teaching online because the online world is built to hold and move information. You can share reams of text and bucket loads of data. You can record lectures. And more lectures. You can stack links on links on links, embedding hypertexts in between.

At first, when you're beginning to teach online, please don't do all of these things. Please resist the easy affordances of the online world. Instead, try to connect.

The job of an online teacher is the job of an offline teacher is the job of a teacher. Connect to people and help them to feel connected to you and to the dimension of the world you are leading them to experience. Connect your students to one another in a way that enables them not only to learn content from one another, but also to catch life experiences from one another-to shape one another in the way that only peers can. It's that simple ... and it's that complex.

We're getting a little lost, on purpose, so let's think back to your original, in-person class (you know, the one in Room 13 or Lab B) and what you'll miss about it.

If you were walking into that classroom and you suddenly had lost your voice, but you had to stay, you would figure out ways to connect with the people in front of you, right? And if you were walking into that classroom and you suddenly lost your ability to see what is in front of you, you would find ways to connect with the students in the room. Online teaching is similar to those scenarios in that you lose certain attributes that you may normally take for granted. But you have to be in the room and you have to continue.

Figuring out your first few go-to moves can help. Maybe you'll use a video conference, a digital whiteboard, a collaborative document peppered with comments, or email in order to connect. Great teachers of the past have used chalkboard and chalk, water and wine, or circular tables and folding chairs: elemental resources that prove that it doesn't really matter what you use to teach, so long as you understand how you're trying to connect (or at the very least, that you're trying to connect).

Having that deep motivation will help you with what typically comes next: frustration. Things won't work the way you want them to. You'll find yourself Googling "how do I ...?" or emailing a colleague and asking for help. If you start to feel a sense of frustration, though, take heart: that's how you know you're teaching online. That's how you know that you haven't lost the desire to teach-and learn-in the first place.

We don't want to minimize the challenge. But we also want to acknowledge that thinking about tools, bells and whistles is less important than acknowledging that, once you start, wherever you start, you'll build capacity just like you have, and had to, in a face-to-face classroom. At first, the tools you choose will be all that you think about. You'll only see them as you bump up against their limitations.

Soon, though, you'll only see your students. Their personalities will return. Some formerly silent or quiet students may share their voices. Some formerly disengaged students may jump out as leaders.

You'll find new things to do-things you couldn't do offline. Students will show you their learning in ways they wouldn't or couldn't offline. Students will take risks in their learning that they would never take if they were in a physical room with one another. You'll be able to assess in new ways, ways that may help you provide better feedback.

We know we're saying these things as if there aren't dozens of steps embedded in each of them. But we think that if you're willing to ask questions along the way, if you're willing to Google and search things and watch videos and educate yourself as you're going, you'll pick up the thread of your former teaching.

When you are in a physical classroom and you are teaching history or math, part of the action stems from the history and the math, and part of the action (okay, most of the action) stems from the socializing, the communication, and what kids are picking up from each other and from you-which has nothing to do with your subject. (Sorry if you didn't know that!)

The same holds true for online environments. By being in these spaces with students and asserting your unique voice as a teacher, you are actually doing the work, even if you are not presenting it perfectly.

What's more, when you are back offline, when you walk into your old brick-and-mortar classroom, one last surprise awaits. You might keep some of what you found in the online wilderness. You might use collaborative documents in new ways. You might find new ways to access student voice ... or allow students to show their thinking in ways that they-and you-never could have imagined.

- SV & RR

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A Letter to Educators Teaching Online for the First Time - EdSurge News

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Dear Teachers, Last week, the two of us had a conversation about school leaders who would be leading and making decisions related to the spread of COVID-19. That conversation turned into a set of guidelines that we published first with Global Online Academy and later with EdSurge.

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For Teachers: Emergency Remote Teaching vs. Intentional Teaching

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While my district has yet to release its plan for the fall here in Wisconsin, things are not looking so good. The last two days we have set new records in my county for positive test results for Covid-19, as a family we went through our own wait-time to get results this week so we have continued to stay at home with very limited movement. And while there is a lot of uncertainty that are furiously being discussed and planned for as best we can, one thing is practically certain; our year will not start in the normal sense.

And it shouldn't, we have changed. Our world has changed.

Community lies at the heart of everything we do, the threads that bind us together create a learning space that will hopefully work for all of the children in our care. I know most of the learning success I had in the three months of crisis teaching was dependent on the community we had spent all year establishing and maintaining. On the trust we had built, on the care for each other, on the fun we had had. We know that building that community is hard work, it is not just simply putting together fun activities and hoping kids will buy into it and immediately build trust. There is so much that goes into creating the space that we hope kids will flourish in throughout the year. But how do we do that when we are not face to face? When we perhaps are both teaching live and online at the same time?

My hope every year is that the children in my care feel safe within our community. Safe to be who they are. Safe to challenge themselves. Safe to take risks. Safe to disagree. Safe to speak up. Safe to show up even if they are not at their best. Safe to go on a year long identity journey together. One that hopefully will matter to them beyond "just" developing their English Language Arts skills.

And yet the whole determination and definition of safe is something that has been weighing on me. When we say that we want our classrooms to be safe, what do we really mean? I have been reading the brilliant book Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in Classroom by Matthew R. Kay and he writes about this as well, "...for most students, a teacher's safe space designation doesn't mean much." Because we don't definite it, because we don't think about our cultural norms that at times exclude kids, because we don't think about the extent of the required needs to be met for someone to feel safe. And so when I think of community building work, I want it to be meaningful, it want it to be real. Yes, there is room for fun, for get-to-know you activities, but how do we go past that? How do we get further?

For me, I plan on spending our face-to-face time on a lot of the community building we usually do. As it stands, it sounds like my district will be hybrid with some face-to-face and some online, where I teach both at the same time (no, I am not sure how that will work). This means that as always we will spend the first few weeks laser focused on laying the groundwork for our year-long identity work. We will do the work we do every year. We will reflect on our reading and writing identity. We will discuss when reading sucks. We will create our reading rights together. We will set meaningful goals for our own growth. We will read and discuss personal essays that speak to not fitting into the world, into being seen as different, into finding your people, finding your own strength. We will start our focus on whose voices are missing and how that impacts our understanding of our world. We will do all of this together so that online can become learning time. So that online can be manageable for the kids who can access it. So that the online work becomes a time for kids to go deeper with what we are already doing rather than further to-do's. And yet, the community aspect also needs to continue to be developed while we are apart, so that we can feel connected, so that we can grow together.
A few ideas I am contemplating using:

Ready-Set-Go conferences before the year starts, we offered these up last year face-to-face and had a good turnout. This year, depending on access, they will either be face-to-face or virtual for a chance for us to meet.

Yard visits, for those who are okay with it, I would like to say hello from a distance before the year starts. Either by standing in the street, a public park, or some other decided place. This will be an option to see each other from a far and say hello.

A welcome video for the students hopefully shot in our classroom so they can get a sense of what it looks like. If not it will be from my home with my kids.

Welcome postcards. I wrote a lot of postcards in the past few months, I think they made a difference, and even if they didn't, it is one more way to say hello. I am playing with the idea of including a postcard they can mail back to me with the postage already paid. I don't know how many kids would take me up on it but perhaps some would.

Weekly surveys checking in worked well for me last semester. Here is a sample of one.

I want community to be built through the work we do, not just as an add on feature, so the work we do needs to be worth their time and dedication. This is huge as I start to plan the work and our year focus.

Easy accessible Google Slides to work through every day they are online, only a few items but I want to focus on sharing either through video, audio, or written form. We will use Padlet, Flipgrid, or whatever else we can use to respond to each other.

I won't be able to do morning meetings live because I will be teaching at the same time, I will be doing recorded morning messages every day though and keep them short! My own kids scoffed the minute their morning videos were longer than 3 minutes.

I will be offering free PD on how I plan on embedding authentic choice and voice throughout our year in August, I will be definitely sharing more about my ideas for building community authentically. To sign up and see more information, please go to this website and search for my name. This is also the heart of my work alongside students and I write extensively about it in my book, Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Learners.
I want to be mindful of a lot of things:

Virtual teaching is inherently more inequitable than even live teaching.

Not all kids will be able to access virtual teaching for many different reasons.

Kids have no reason to trust me.

Having a device (provided for all kids by my district) does not mean you have space to or time to use it.

Students are in many different places in their journey of learning and also in how safe they feel at school. I want to be acutely aware of this and let it guide my work.

The world continues to be overwhelming, kids are in a lot of different places when it comes to their mental health. Everything we do has to be shaped through equity and care.

I will be one of many classes.

We, teachers, need to deeply collaborate especially when it comes to how much work we are asking kids to do.

We need even more safety nets such as trusted adults for every child.

We need to find ways for students to connect with one another, not just in an academic sense.

I keep thinking about this webinar: A conversation with Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, Dena Simmons and Brian Jones about abolitionist teaching and antiracist education. I have been a part of a lot of learning this summer and this was one of the most powerful hours I spent, their voices are definitely resonating loudly as I plan for my upcoming year.

Yesterday on Twitter I asked for ideas for building community online because surely others have been grappling with this idea as well. I promised I would share the ideas here as a list not to take credit, but instead to highlight all of the ideas floating around. So thank you to all who shared. Thank you to all who took the time to share new or tried and true ideas. May we all be able to find something that will help us out.

Major take aways from ideas shared:

Identity work and creating learning conditions that honor each child is a must.

Having access in many different ways to allow kids choice.

Making yourself available in many different formats.

Scheduling virtual drop-in times where kids can hang out and also interact with you works well.

Don't require video or their face to be shown.

What works for your students will depend very much on your students.

Don't be afraid to try things and then change them or not use the idea if it doesn't work.

What were other ideas shared?
The brilliant Julie Jee also asked this question, here is the thread with all of the ideas shared.

I am grateful for all of the ideas shared, there were even more than were posted here, to see the original thread, click this link. We may face an uncertain future when it comes to our school but one thing remains; the kids will show up and need us to be fully human, to be present, and to be safe. I hope that you can use some of these ideas to help you move toward that.

Also, if your district or conference are interested in bringing me in virtually throughout the school year, please see information here. I have been supporting teachers remotely as they plan for meaningful literacy instruction in a virtual and hybrid model throughout the summer and would love to help others as well.

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But How Do We Build Community? Ideas for Virtual and Hybrid Learning

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While my district has yet to release its plan for the fall here in Wisconsin, things are not looking so good. The last two days we have set new records in my county for positive test results for Covid-19, as a family we went through our own wait-time to get results this week so we...

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How To Teach While Wearing A Mask - Smart Classroom Management

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At some point, we'll all be back teaching in person. Only now it will be behind a mask. At first glance, this seems more than just a nuisance, but impossible to do effectively. After all, students need to see your mouth and facial expressions ... Read more

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With school districts starting the 2020/2021 school year online, parents and teachers are continually looking for online learning resources. Teachers have been tasked with delivering lesson plans and classroom activities as part of distance learning. Parents are trying to keep students on track with their studies and educational growth. We are here to help! This growing list offers a wealth of resources for all ages of students, parents, and teachers!

Go to:

Online Resources for Kids in Grades K-5

These sites have ready-to-use lesson plans and activities for a vast amount of subjects for younger students.

What It Is: This comprehensive program covers a wide variety of subjects for students aged 2-8 (Pre-K through second grade). It offers more than 850 self-guided lessons across 10 levels. A companion program focuses on teaching English as a second language for this age group.

What It Is: This MMO game gives kids something other online learning resources may lack: a sense of community. Students up to age 13 play games to learn across a range of topics (math, reading, social studies, science, and more), while also creating their own online persona and interacting with others in the game.

What It Is: Daily free resources and activities in American Sign Language and English, for young deaf children ages 3-10. They offer weekly activities based on their award-winning VL2 Storybook Apps to support bilingual language development. It is run by Motion Light Lab, part of a research center on Visual Language and Visual Learning at Gallaudet University.

What They're Offering: Free access to Motion Light Lab's award-winning VL2 ASL Storybook Apps. Every week, the Motion Light Lab offers a free Storybook App which includes daily offerings in ASL and English, live storytelling "sign aloud" on Mondays, and an ASL/English literacy lesson live-streamed every Wednesday on YouTube featuring deaf narrators and accompanying worksheets for a deeper dive into each story.

What It Is: BrainPop offers in-depth learning on topics across the curriculum for upper elementary and middle school students. Each topic includes videos, quizzes, related reading, and even coding activities. Teachers have access to planning and tracking resources too. They also offer BrainPop Jr., specially designed for younger kids.

What They're Offering: All schools get free access to their COVID-19/coronavirus online learning resources for talking to students about the topic.

What It Is: A character education video subscription series for K-2 students that highlight positive character traits, exemplified by prominent figures.

What It Is: A nonprofit and charity, Classroom Champions connects volunteer Olympians, Paralympians, Student-Athletes, and Professional Athletes to K-8 classrooms through a social and emotional based curriculum and mentorship experience.

What It Is: A fun and educational game-based environment where kids learn to code without any prior experience. After completing CodeMonkey's award-winning coding courses, kids will be able to navigate through the programming world with a sense of confidence and accomplishment.

What It Is: Turn writing assignments into something amazing with the illustrations, animations, and sound effects available. Kids can even write their own choose-your-own-adventure story!

What It Is: This research-based emotional skills program is designed for children ages 4-11 and gives kids practical tools for dealing with impulse control, frustration, and acting out. Emotional ABCs teaches children how to figure out what they're feeling, why they're experiencing that emotion, and how to make better choices for lifetime emotional resilience.

What It Is: Three beta-stage eLearning tools from the scientists in their R&D division to help improve reading, writing, and English language speaking skills.

What It Is: A science teaching resource that brings school science standards to life through fun and educational videos paired with lesson plans, activities, quizzes, reading material, discussion questions, and more.

What It Is: Using multimedia Interactive Posters, students can express ideas with ease by combining images, graphics, audio, video, and text on one digital canvas!

What It Is: Happy Numbers helps teachers deliver quality math instruction, monitor progress, and math growth-all remotely. Students can access Happy Numbers from any Internet-enabled device (even a smartphone!).

What it is: HearBuilder, from Super Duper Publications, is an online, research-based, foundational literacy program. It helps students in PreK-Grade 5 strengthen skills in the essential pre-literacy areas of following directions, sequencing, auditory memory and phonological awareness.

What they're offering: HearBuilder is available free for 60 days. Teachers, parents and therapists can access self-directed activities and short and targeted tasks for students, as well as tools to monitor student progress. HearBuilder is accessible at school or during distance learning.

What It Is: Highlights @ Home is a new, free service for families and teachers that delivers themed content bundles twice a week from the well-known children's magazine creator, Highlights.

What It Is: iknowit is a site with over 500 common-core aligned activities and math games for students in the elementary grades. The site keeps track of progress, offers graphical hints and explanations, and there are also animated characters to cheer students along.

What They're Offering: A free 30 day trial with unlimited access and no credit card required.

What It Is: A platform for reading comprehension passages and skill assessment in early education and home schooling.

What It Is: Mentoring Minds impacts millions of students every day by partnering with principals and teachers across the country to improve student achievement and teach critical thinking. Find educator resources that focus on the 9 traits of Critical Thinking.

What They're Offering: Free coloring book in English and Spanish, as well as a new animated video series.

What It Is: Mindsets Live Classes and Open Math Challenges help teachers & families keep learning going in math, science, & STEAM with fun and creative real-world problem-solving.

What It Is: This popular differentiated learning site provides instruction across a wide array of elementary subjects. Available for at-home instruction and classroom instruction, online training on effectively using the site is also available.

What It Is: PebbleGo offers safe, interactive online research resources on topics selected by their teachers for students K-3.

What It Is: Hands-on, minds-on learning can happen anywhere and everywhere. If you're looking for STEMspiration because of an unexpected homeschooling need, you're in the midst of an uncommon education experience, or you just want to have some STEM fun, Pitsco has great resources that are always available for free.

What It Is: Produced by RedRover, Kind News magazine is a Parent's Choice Approved Award winning children's magazine that inspires readers to explore the relationship between people and animals. It includes engaging articles, colorful illustrations, activities, and games to help kids explore the relationship between people and animals and develop knowledge and skills necessary for empathy and kindness.

What They're Offering: KindNews.org includes free lesson plans, links to past issues, and humane-themed books.

What It Is: Scholastic created the Scholastic Learn at Home website to provide students with an array of learning journeys that span various content areas. Subscriptions include several learning opportunities per day, including projects based on articles and stories, virtual field trips, reading and geography challenges, and more.

What It Is: Seekadoo is a safe, kid-friendly search engine app for children ages 3-13. Seekadoo's content database is carefully curated to ensure appropriate material for children and integrated ad-blocking eliminates tracking and monetization of children's data so their digital footprints remain private.

What It Is: The Square Panda Smart Letters playset engages children's tactile and kinesthetic as well as visual and auditory senses, because neuroscience shows that early readers learn best in a multisensory environment.

What It Is: An online learning tool which provides personalized math and spelling practice. It adapts questions to each student, using engaging games and rewards for effort and achievement to build their confidence, and is proven to accelerate progress. Teachers can set focused work to consolidate existing knowledge and get real-time feedback on each individual child, making it an ideal home learning tool.

What it is: Super Duper Publications has created an online library of its most popular print materials to provide access for teachers and parents doing distance and hybrid/blended learning.

What they're offering: The Super Duper Digital Library is available at a discounted rate of 199.95 for an annual subscription or $19.95 for a monthly subscription. It provides more than 365 standards-based online resources (with more being added daily) for students PreK-Grade 5. Resources include unique, engaging instructional games, cards, and worksheets to target specific skills, such as basic concepts, literacy, grammar, social skills, critical thinking, sequencing, listening, early skills, articulation, phonemic awareness, memory, motor skills, sensory integration, phonics, reading, and more.

What It Is: Super Star Online, by Help Me 2 Learn, is a supplemental reading, phonics, and math program featuring a wide variety of songs, interactive activities, and games in an engaging and easy-to-use format. Features include the Super Star Motivational and Data Tracking System.

What It Is: Super Teacher Worksheets has tens of thousands of printable teaching resources for Kindergarten through 5th grade teachers and parents working with Pre-K through 5th grade students. Topics include math, reading, writing, phonics, grammar, spelling, science, and social studies.

What It Is: A digital series that aims to give young people a fun and active way to use their imaginations while learning about the process of creating theater.

What It Is: A nationwide writing curriculum designed for teachers, administrators, and parents. It takes away the stress of finding and developing a curriculum for their students.

What It Is: A program for PreK-1st grade students and those with special needs to learn to write their letters, numbers, and shapes using fun visuals, rhythmic chants, and repetition.

What It Is: A web-based keyboarding program that teaches students how to type and has unique transdisciplinary Common Core and NGSS aligned content provided through its lessons.

What It Is: Virtual Field Trips specializes in K-8 social studies, life science, geography, and ancient civilization curriculum content. Their website has online learning videos and quizzes along with a list of the national and state Standards that the videos align with.

What It Is: An easy-to-use platform designed to empower K-8 students to master math content at their own pace.

Online Learning Resources for Grades 6-12

Use these ready-to-implement resources in your virtual classrooms for older learners.

BBC My World Media Literacy

What It Is: A complete web-based math curriculum designed to help students ages 8-13 deepen their understanding of math.

What It Is: Math lessons, skills practice resources, and at-home learning videos for grade 6-12 students.

What It Is: NativeAccent delivers spoken English skills practice with targeted feedback to students on their computers and mobile devices using advanced speech recognition and A.I. technologies.

What It Is: Software engineers from some of the leading technology companies, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are volunteering their time to help students learn how to code while schools are closed.

What It Is: Free, interactive virtual classes open to students, teachers, and anyone else interested in learning to code in a fun and engaging manner through game development. The program is aligned to ISTE Standards for computer science education.

What It Is: GeoInquiries™ are free, standards-based, online explorations of maps and data about a wide variety of content plus an initial introduction. Any school can also request a free account with logins for teachers and students, so they can create, save, and share content, with free Mapping Hour videos to instruct teachers and parents.

What They're Offering: Free online content and accounts for schools on an interactive mapping platform. Learn More.

What It Is: Everydae is an online SAT math prep program. 10-minute micro lessons match busy schedules. Built by industry experts with 17+ years industry experience.

What It Is: Teaches STEM and STEAM with a game design focus. GameSalad is best suited for 6th grade and up depending on student readiness. Detailed instructions for students and full lesson plans for teachers make a great introduction to coding.

What It Is: A unique cultural immersion resource for Spanish, French and German language learning for grades 6-12. iCulture offers travel videos, day in the life videos, current news articles, and songs that are all 100% target language, age and school appropriate, and include topics of interest to teens and young adults.

What It Is: Popfizz CS is a computer science education platform for grades 6-12. Popfizz offers a wide range of online student courses and professional development for educators.

What They're Offering: All their tools are easily accessible on their website for free.

What It Is: An interactive AP Biology course with engaging content and interactive activities in the form of quizzes and flashcards to provide immediate reinforcement of the material. Teachers can assign portions of the course to their students, and track their progress. Or students can work independently and track their own progress!

What It Is:Thousands of free study guides, test prep, and video learning resources.

What It Is: Resources include free trials to Vernier Video Analysis™ and Pivot Interactives, the Vernier Physics with Video Analysis e-book and extended demo of the LoggerPro software needed to complete the experiments, Scratch coding activities, experiment content and access from ADInstruments and LabArchives, and more than 200 experiments with sample data covering a large range of subjects. With these tools, teachers can help students form a deep understanding of key scientific concepts outside the classroom and laboratory.

What It Is: VidCode is an online coding and computer science curriculum specifically for teens. It teaches JavaScript, web programming, design, and more.

What It Is: Online close reading instruction, leveled authentic texts with comprehension quizzes, and gamified vocabulary for grades 6-12.

K-12 Online Learning Resources

These sites have lesson plans and activities ready to go on a variety of subjects for any grade.

What It Is: A comprehensive suite of digital solutions that significantly accelerate literacy and deepen learning across the content areas.

What They're Offering: Achieve3000 Literacy at Home Digital provides access to engaging non-fiction articles at 3 reading levels. Sign up for a free account here. Additionally, they are offering Literacy Printable Packets for students who do not have internet access at home.

What It Is: K-12 personalized online math instruction that provides each student with a unique study path through skills at each level. Individual study plans are prescriptive, adaptive, and automatically assigned

What It Is: An eBook hosting platform for schools and libraries.

What It Is: BoomWriter offers a variety of tools, features, and resources that lets teachers conduct fiction, nonfiction, and vocabulary-focused writing assignments. BoomWriter inspires students to write on any subject and integrates easily with existing curriculum. Try it for ELA, Social Studies/History, Science, and even Math.

What It Is: A digital portfolio that allows students and educators to shape knowledge and ideas into practical, usable, and shareable work. With bulb, educators can track progress, measure competency, and create dynamic curricula or use one of their templates.

What It Is: A PreK-12 educational company that provides a supplemental, and highly differentiated literacy digital curriculum with demonstrated efficacy.

What It Is: CCC! Streaming Media helps students visualize printed text and aids their understanding of complex concepts. The content has been vetted by educators and aligned to Common Core and state standards, and is supplemented with Teacher's Guides, Student Activities, and Knowledge Checks (quizzes).

What It Is: Century was designed as an intervention tool to identify and remedy gaps in a student's education. It uses artificial intelligence to tailor the learning experience to the learner, much like an actual teacher in the classroom would.

What It Is: ClassHook offers quality media clips on every conceivable topic. Pre-curated playlists make it easier to find what you need for the subject at hand.

What It Is: Crabtree Publishing Company is dedicated to producing high-quality books and educational products for K-9+. Through their website, different selections of their books can be accessed along with free online resources that are included in a Crabtree subscription.

What It Is: The Critical Thinking Co. publishes award-winning PreK-12+ educational textbooks, activity books, e-books, and apps that help children become better problem-solvers. The approach is unique: help kids develop foundational reasoning & critical thinking skills while learning the core subjects (reading, writing, math, science, and social studies).

What It Is: Discovery Education provides online textbooks, multimedia content, and professional development support for virtual classrooms and teachers. Daily DE offers supplemental learning activities, including virtual field trips and lessons, for both educators and parents that will update daily to align with a new educational theme.

What It Is: Innovative math and science online solutions that are fun to use and really work. Gizmos, Reflex, and Science4Us are used in classrooms in every state and over 50 countries worldwide.

What It is: Hip-hop videos and instructional activities that promote literacy and spark creativity.

What It Is: Follett offers over 1,000 PreK-12 titles in science, social studies, language arts, math, and more. AV2 World Languages features high-interest titles in 10 different languages with full audio support. Parents and students will find these resources interactive, easy to use and a great way for students to independently explore a new topic.

What It Is: Interdisciplinary, curriculum-aligned resources to support online learning from Pre-K through undergraduate; Live and on-demand training materials to help optimize existing resources; Professional development eBooks to help transition to and strengthen virtual learning and Authoritative Gale resources on health-related topics and global issues.

What It Is: A math practice program for concept mastery and retention.

What They're Offering: Free, unlimited trial usage for schools until July 2021.

What It Is: Original, fully-customizable musicals that not only enhance Reading and Communication skills, but also employ Arts Integration and Social Emotional Learning to encourage strong character development both onstage and off.

What It Is: A website loaded with standards-aligned lessons, games, and activities that will keep K-8 students engaged while learning from home.r.

What It Is: A highly adaptable program that teaches challenging life skills to school students with various special needs. The full program offers 39 lessons, 65 videos, visual components, and role plays around the topics of hygiene, social skills, relationships development, and health that can be implemented both virtually and face-to-face.

What It Is: InferCabulary is a web-based, research-backed, device-agnostic, K-12, fun, game-based, visual approach for teaching nuanced vocabulary that simultaneously improves students' critical thinking skills. InferCabulary is the opposite of rote memorization of definitions - they mimic the act of avid readership so students deeply learn words and improve comprehension.

What It Is: Do you Kahoot! Teachers have loved this fun online quiz game platform for years. Here's why we're into it.

What They're Offering: Kahoot! Basic is free for educators and students, but they're also currently offering their Premium distance learning tools for free. Learn more here- Kahoot!

What It Is: A weekly current events-based program. It presents engaging and important stories from around the world in a newsmagazine format.

What It Is: An online core supplement for grades 1-12 that was designed to be used in classrooms to help teachers with increasing responsibilities and numbers of students.

What It Is: At the Lerner Bookshelf, they've set up two collections of eBooks (Grades PreK-5 and Grades 6-12) that allow for unlimited simultaneous access by every student in a school. They also offer reading book lists, videos, educational downloads, information on authors who are available for virtual visits, and more.

What It Is: Listenwise teaches students to be better listeners using podcasts, comprehension questions, and quizzes.

What It Is: MAD-learn's web-based mobile app development tool is a holistic set of modules for students to experience the software development lifecycle firsthand.

What It Is: NGSS based science lessons for 4th-8th graders that can easily be done from home.

What It Is: This is the only online learning management system for teaching music at all age levels. Band practice might be off the table for now, but students can still work on theory, notation, sight-reading and more.

What It Is: The NASA STEM Engagement site offers STEM resources, activities, lesson plans, virtual field trips, and more! Also check out NASA Home and City to find out how space travel impacts your daily life.

What They're Offering: Explore the Hubble Telescope and listen to astronauts share their stories. All for free!

What They're Offering: All resources are free.

What It Is: News-O-Matic features five daily news stories specifically for kids, written at a variety of reading levels from grades K through 8. Every story is translated by native speakers from English into Spanish, French, and Arabic. And all these texts, at all levels and languages, are read out loud so kids can listen along. Teachers have access to a special dashboard to track students' reading progress, change their reading levels, and see students' answers to comprehension questions for each article.

What it is: PBLWorks, the leading provider of professional development for high-quality Project Based Learning (PBL), has created a free eBook to support high-quality Project Based Learning at home.

What they're offering: This Teachable Moment, a free downloadable eBook offers a primer on Project Based Learning (PBL) and 21 easy implemented, "follow the recipe" PBL projects, informed by educational research and designed for children of all ages. Projects such as creating a cooking show focused on family recipes and the history behind them, or creating a plan for a new school that meets our new reality, engage children in real-world issues and activities that matter to them while also teaching concepts like literacy, math and more.

What It Is: Perfection Next is a digital learning platform offering access to our entire catalog of digital resources including AMSCO Advanced Placement, Language Arts, Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Languages.

What It Is: A web-app that gives teachers and students a unique way to create stories, demonstrate learning, and enhance writing assignments - in any subject - through digital comics. Users can explore topics in Math, Science, Social Studies, History, English, Art, or any other subject. They can also choose images from popular content, books and movies like The Hunger Games or The Outsiders, plus other topics like the solar system, black history, or the environment - all Common Core aligned.

What They're Offering: All-access for free for 30 days during the COVID-19 crisis. Learn more here- Pixton EDU.

What It Is: Quill offers a set of diagnostic assessments and independent practice activities that focus on grammar, sentence construction, and other writing and literacy skills. All the while, Quill provides teachers with free, in-depth data reports on student performance.

What It Is: An online guided reading tool that "listens" while a student reads a selection aloud, detects when they falter, and provides immediate intervention in the form of correct pronunciation.

What It Is: Teachers and parents can keep their child's reading instruction moving forward with Reading Horizons' library of virtual webinars and lessons.

What It Is: Readorium helps students learn nonfiction reading strategies as they build rich background knowledge in science at school or at home.

What It Is: RoboKind's virtual coding course will help districts provide elementary and middle school students with engaging computer science content during this unexpected period of school closures.

What It Is: Rozzy Learning has engaging lesson plans and other resources for science, social studies, math, and STEM for K-8th grade.

What It Is: This brand-new virtual classroom platform integrates PowerPoint, Zoom video webinars, and Slido quizzes into one streamlined package.

What It Is: SMART Learning Suite is a virtual classroom platform that easily integrates everything you already have on Google Drive or in Microsoft documents. You can add videos and other online resources as needed.

What It Is: Join their expert staff in learning about awesome topics like 3D design, video game design, coding, and more all from home. Their staff deliver lessons virtually and are available live to help provide targeted guidance and assistance to students as they work through awesome activities and projects.

What It Is: Study Island provides standards-based practice, test preparation, and formative assessments in grades K-12. Students get feedback to guide their learning and educators get immediate data to determine who needs intervention and who is ready to move on.

What It Is: A K-12 publishing company that creates science and social studies curriculum to enable educators to improve their ability to engage students in a diverse classroom.

What It Is: With Tyto Online, students solve authentic science problems as they learn, using a video game to power their experience. 'Tyto Online' is NGSS-aligned, covering life science and some Earth and space science.

What It Is: These online learning resources are specifically for those who teach French, Spanish, and ESL. Students get audio and video, interactive writing and speaking exercises, and more.

What It Is: Students and families can access news stories about the world, politics, United States, science, sports, and more. Xyza also recently launched www.newsicle.co where students try and answer one news-related trivia quiz every weekday.

What They're Offering: Completely free and unlimited access to 1000+ Xyza: News for Kids articles.

Remote Learning and Virtual Classroom Platforms

These sites allow you to follow your existing lesson plans by creating your own online learning resources. Some also provide the platforms you need to host virtual interactive multimedia classrooms.

What It Is: With Bloomz, teachers and schools save time by having all the tools they need to communicate with today's parents and students in one easy-to-use (and free) app.

What It Is: Life Skills Academy by Conover is an online video library designed to be used outside the classroom so parents or guardians can help learners with disabilities learn how to function independently at home, work, or in the community. Based on the concept of video modeling, users watch someone do the desired behavior and then do it themselves.

What It Is: EduGuide saves schools time and money by efficiently multiplying their student support system, building self-motivation that keeps students learning, even when they are remote. EduGuide provides a simple way for every student to both be mentored by a caring adult and learn to mentor their peers on key social-emotional SEL habits that boost student success.

What It Is: Teachers can access a collection of learning paths from some of the most well-known thought leaders in education covering topics such as Understanding by Design, Habits of Mind, Social Emotional Learning, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity, Personalized Learning, and Growth Mindset.

What It Is: Get the most out of Google Classroom and other Google tools with this platform. They offer webinars and other resources to help teachers create and manage the best virtual classrooms.

What It Is: A cloud-based solution from Impero Software to help schools manage and record student safety and health information, from first aid to COVID-19 symptom tracking, to more complex mental health issues. Impero back:drop gives districts a way to keep track of and communicate about potential concerns safely and securely and eliminates the need for paper-based reporting systems.

What They're Offering: Impero has made Impero back:drop free indefinitely, helping schools fill a critical need for staying on top of student mental and physical concerns during the pandemic and beyond.

What It Is: A collaborative online image and video editor with a cloud storage Workspace. Teachers can make video lessons to send to students for remote learning, students can work together on a group project, and classrooms can share multimedia projects with each other.

What It Is: Projector App helps teachers project their real word notes onto a professional-looking, virtual blackboard.

What it is: PBLWorks, the leading provider of professional development for high-quality Project Based Learning (PBL), has created a free eBook to support high-quality Project Based Learning at home.

What they're offering: This Teachable Moment, a free downloadable eBook offers a primer on Project Based Learning (PBL) and 21 easy implemented, "follow the recipe" PBL projects, informed by educational research and designed for children of all ages. Projects such as creating a cooking show focused on family recipes and the history behind them, or creating a plan for a new school that meets our new reality, engage children in real-world issues and activities that matter to them while also teaching concepts like literacy, math and more.

What It Is: A cloud-based lesson delivery software service that energizes students with polling, timed assessments, interactive lessons, activities, and millions of immersive resources from educators around the world. ClassFlow is certified by iKeepSafe as compliant with federal and state requirements for handling protected personal information, including student data, and is safely used by over 4.5 million students worldwide.

What It Is: SafeToNet makes the digital world safer for children to explore and enjoy. Its award-winning AI-powered software safeguards children and their mental wellbeing when using their mobile devices, without sacrificing their privacy. The app provides an intelligent safeguarding keyboard and wellbeing tools that respond in real-time to help children make better decisions online, identify when they are under threat or distress, and prevent messages from being sent that could harm them and others.

What It Is: Free K-12 Math, ELA, Science and Social Studies resources! Create effective classwork and assignments that have been proven to increase performance. All content is designed to engage and challenge students at their own level./li>

What It Is: Keep your music students practicing at home with this online music classroom. You can track student progress, and they'll get instant feedback from the online tools.

What It Is: More than just a computer, classroom, STEM kits, or a project - SmartLabs are a comprehensive and immersive solution.

What It Is: StudyBee is a grading and student feedback system that extends Google Classroom functionality, with the ability to link assignments to custom or standardized educational objectives from the US.

What It Is: A collaborative presentation tool used for all grade levels that works perfectly for the remote classroom.

What It Is: An online bookmarker for educators. Committed to making personalized learning and educational technology easily accessible for everyone, everywhere.

What It Is: Companies across the world use Webex to keep their teams in contact remotely. They offer lots of tools that are ideal for taking your classes online.

What It Is: Rather than fighting smartphones, Wooclap turns them into an exceptional learning tool. Wooclap is a free tool to help maintain interactivity and effective pedagogy. Their goal is to capture the attention of students to improve their learning whether they're in the classroom or at home taking an online course.

What It Is: Project your lessons in group settings with Zoom. You can even record the sessions for students who need to review later. This video and audio conferencing tool has a chat functionality where students can ask questions as you teach.

Professional Development & Training

These sites assist with continuing professional development and curriculum for teachers.

What It Is: Nomadic is a digital learning pioneer launching a Remote Work Boot Camp to help newly remote folks get better equipped to face our current working reality.
Feeling overwhelmed? You're definitely not alone. Join fellow educators in the WeAreTeachers Chat group on Facebook to get support from others just like you.

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350+ Amazing Websites For Kids Learning at Home

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With school districts starting the 2020/2021 school year online, parents and teachers are continually looking for online learning resources. Teachers have been tasked with delivering lesson plans and classroom activities as part of distance learning. Parents are trying to keep students on track with their studies and educational growth.

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Schools all over the world are closing their doors due to health concerns. So many of them are turning to eLearning, distance learning, remote learning.

Trying to make sense of it? Trying to just keep your head above water?

We've got you covered. In our eLearning, remote learning and distance learning page, we have lots of resources.

Get some ideas, tools and templates here. Then get started. You got this.

Quick Navigation

Click on any icon below to be taken directly to that section.

Remote learning templates

Google Slides Themes and PowerPoint Templates for Remote Learning

Created by Paula Martinez of Slides Mania

Weekly Planner for Online Lessons I

Now that educators, students and families are adapting to distance learning, planning your online lessons using Google Slides is a great option whether you are using Google Classroom or not. Almost everybody has a Gmail account and you can easily share the link to the deck with your students.

You can add all the multimedia files they'll need within the Google Slides file. Just one file for the whole week!

Weekly Planner for Online Lessons II

A new weekly planner for educators!

Paula Martinez, creator of Slides Mania, has added multiple links for you and your students to navigate it easily. Also added a Contact slide for you to put your information, so students and parents can reach you. And a Video Conference Hours slide, in case you are using Zoom or Meet, to put the hours there.

Choice board template for Google Slides

Besides the slides for 6 activities or choices Paula has added a section where students can write about what they learned, or maybe you want them to write about something else, your choice.

The good thing about these "students" slides is that they can all work on the same file. If you are teaching synchronously, you can see them work as they type, just change the view to grid.

Free Remote Learning Online Course

14 modules

2.5+ hours of video

Downloadable planning guides

Lifetime access

Forum for sharing ideas

Teaching with Google Slides and PowerPoint

Google Slides and PowerPoint are so much more than presentation tools. Google Slides and PowerPoint can be used as part of a lesson or use them to create and assign a complete lesson or unit.

Setting up your remote learning classroom

Remote Learning Tips from an Online Teacher

Do More with Google Classroom

Teach better. Save time. Make a difference.

The short how-to tutorials on Google Classroom are EVERYWHERE. But how do we teach well with it? In this book, you'll find practical ideas to do great teaching with Google Classroom and thrive.

Lesson planning for remote learning

The strategies you use to create quality in class lessons still apply when creating online lessons and activities.

Below are some resources to help you make the shift.

Make learning memorable!

Take your teaching to the next level by transforming your lessons into a memorable learning experience.

20 digital bell ringer activities to kickstart class

10 ideas for digital exit tickets

How can we make the most of the end of class? How can we tie a bow on a day of class to wrap everything up?

An exit ticket gives us that opportunity - much like bell-ringer activities help us kick class off effectively.

The name "exit ticket" makes it sound like you need a ticket to exit the room, but exit tickets are final quick check-ins with students before class wraps up. Here are 10 ideas for a meaningful ending to class.

Using Pear Deck for Remote Learning

Unique Online Learning Assessment Ideas

Distance learning with Kahoot

40+ FREE digital escape rooms (plus a step by step guide for creating your own)

Digital escape rooms, also referred to as digital breakouts, are a great way to bring gameplay and problem solving to any lesson or unit. They can be an exciting and engaging activity for the whole class or as an option for early finishers.

This post is full of everything you'll need to use free digital escape rooms -- or even create your own!

Want to use digital escape rooms to spark your students' imagination?

Check out our Getting Started with Digital Escape Rooms onlinecourse !

For just $19 you'll get:
- Video tutorials to guide you in getting started

- PDF guides to help you plan

- LOTS of example escape room ideas you can use as inspiration

- 25 digital escape rooms with lock combinations and companion resources in a downloadable PDF

- A step-by-step companion website with templates to help you and your students create your own digital escape rooms

- A resource locker FILLED with BONUS resources

Classroom video calls. You can do this. Here's how.

How to use Google Meet for elearning, online learning

How to create Google Meet breakout rooms for differentiated learning

Tips for successful video calls (shareable infographics)

10 tips to support students with slow internet

10 tips to support students with slow internet (shareable infographic)

10 no-internet remote learning activities

10 no-internet remote learning activities (shareable infographic)

FREE ebooks

Remote learning video playlist

These live videos take the best ideas from hand-picked guests and share them with you. We take the time to dive deep into important topics. Plus, we take YOUR best ideas and questions and insert them into the conversation.

Subscribe to the Ditch That Textbook YouTube channel for notifications on upcoming live videos! (Don't forget to click the bell icon for notifications!)

Upcoming Speaking

There are no upcoming events.

©2023 Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller.

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Schools all over the world are closing their doors due to health concerns. So many of them are turning to eLearning, distance learning, remote learning. Trying to make sense of it? Trying to just keep your head above water? We've got you covered. In our eLearning, remote learning and distance learning page, we have lots of resources.

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Review and revise what you already have, taking into consideration that norms for in-person learning do not always translate directly to online learning.

Take time to set and post norms for your synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Review them often within the first weeks of school.

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When choosing your planning, organizing, and delivery tools, it is important to choose a limited number (2-4) platforms/virtual tools for the year.

Stick with the platforms, and refine the use of those tools, to ensure you and your students become expert users.

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This resource takes students, parents and teachers through short videos explaining the best ways best to utilize Google Suite Products and other apps.

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Ask a student to help you navigate the virtual lesson. Co-hosts can:

Monitor the chat while you are presenting.

Watch the room for raised hands.

Call on students to participate

With clear prompting directions, students can type their names in the chat to "be in line" to share out. (Co-host calls on them).

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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"I'm sorry to bother you, but..." was the opening line of every email I received in the first week of this semester. This line was usually followed by nothing that would actually bother me: a question about the week's materials, a link to an interesting resource, a discussion about a potential research topic, and the like. This was all despite my many attempts to ensure that students did not feel like they were imposing whenever they contacted me: a pre-semester introductory email, a video welcoming them to the course, my biography and teaching philosophy, virtual office hours, and multiple reminders about my contact information. Yet, with all of my entreaties to reach out, I was still dealing with the real issues of isolation, fear, and frustration that results in students leaving their online courses. To combat these feelings, professors-myself included-have to deliberately, consistently, and relentlessly work to build student-faculty and student-student relationships in online courses.

As educators, we know that building community in the online environment increases the likelihood of student success. Finding ways to concretize something as ephemeral as "a sense of belonging" can be difficult; however, here are five places where you can start:

1. Make yourself available. As the professor, you are the touchstone of your online course community, which means you need to model citizenship in your course. Upload a photo and provide instructions for students to do the same. Personalize your course wherever you are able by using original video announcements, overviews, and lectures. Establish the tone of the community through class correspondence, discussion board replies, and assessment feedback. Often, this also requires you to give students some of yourself (an anecdote about your weekend or a link to something you found interesting). When students are comfortable with you, they are more comfortable learning, participating, and sharing in the learning environment.

2. Create a communication plan. Communication is essential to any relationship, and before you ask students to put themselves out there, you have to show them that it's safe to do so. Before the start of a semester, create a calendar of when you will reach out to each student individually. After the first week, reintroduce yourself and let them know that you're available to them. Before and after midterms are great opportunities for confidence-boasting. And before finals is a good time to remind them that your door (or inbox!) is always open. These communications reinforce the importance of individual attention and personalized education.

3. Encourage interaction. Classroom interactions happen by proximity in the brick-and-mortar classroom, but in the online classroom, you have to be more deliberate about student-student and student-faculty exchanges happen. "In" the classroom, you can use synchronous sessions, communal discussion boards, group projects, student presentations, wikis, and peer review groups. "Out" of the classroom, you can help create study groups and establish crowd-sourced notes. Like all interactions, these should be meaningful, relevant, and theorized to avoid confusion or resentment that can sometimes result from group interactions. When done successfully, however, these interactions create not only a community of learners but can also become lasting friendships.

4. Build "outside class" spaces. Unlike the brick-and-mortar classroom, online classrooms can feel all encompassing, lacking the traditional space and time borders that demarcate the classroom. This often means that there is no "before" or "after" class when much of community-building often occurs. In an online course, you have to consciously build in these "outside" spaces that are free from content delivery and assessment. Make "water cooler" or "café" discussion boards where the class can talk about current events and common interests. Create a social media page for the class where ideas can be shared. Watch a virtual event together and discuss it afterwards. Deliberately creating social moments acknowledges this fundamental aspect of education.

5. Bring the outside in. Paradoxically, online courses can also feel compartmentalized and isolated from the wider campus community. In our courses, we need to remind students that they are a part of large campus culture. Post announcements about events happening on campus. Assign attendance at webinars and live-streaming events for course credit. Encourage them to take part in campus organizations that are especially friendly to distance and continuing education student. Explain how to access student support and resources. As possible the only touchstones to campus, faculty members have to be ambassadors for the college community.

Being deliberate, consistent, and relentless, we can build communities in our online courses that help students to connect with not only with the course materials, but with one another. And by working to create these relationships, we can turn "I'm sorry to bother you" emails into "I'm glad I have someone to reach out to."
References
Bawa, P. (2016). Retention in online courses: exploring issues and solutions- a literature review. SAGE Open, 1-11. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244015621777

Donovan, J. (2015) The importance of building online learning communities. Colorado State University. http://blog.online.colostate.edu/blog/online-education/the-importance-of-building-online-learning-communities/

Erickson, A. & C. Neset. (2014) Building community and creating relevance in the online classroom. Faculty Focus. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/building-community-creating-relevance-online-classroom/

O'Malley, S. (2017) Professors share ideas for building community in online courses. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/07/26/ideas-building-online-community

Stone, K. (2016) Building community in online courses. American Association for Adult and Continuing Education. http://www.aaace.org/news/272788/Building-Community-in-Online-Courses.htm

Talbert, R. (2015) How student video presentations can build community in an online course. Wired Campus. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/how-student-video-presentations-can-build-community-in-an-online-course/57435

Williams, G. (2011) Use GoogleDocs for crowd-sourced notes. ProfHacker. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/use-googledocs-for-crowd-sourced-notes/31644
References Consulted
Angelino, L.M., Williams, F.K., & Natvig, D. (2007). Strategies to engage online students and reduce attrition rates. The Journal of Educators Online, 4(2).

Covelli, B. J. (2017) Online discussion boards: The practice of building community for adult learners. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education. 65:2. 139-145.

Infande, A. (2013) A dozen strategies for improving online student retention. Faculty Focus. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/a-dozen-strategies-for-improving-online-student-retention/

Park, J., & Choi, H. (2009). Factors influencing adult learners' decision to drop out or persist in online learning. Educational Technology & Society, 12(4), 207-217.

Reed, A. (2015). Online student retention requires a collaborative approach. Faculty Focus. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-student-retention-requires-collaborative-approach/

Dr. Melissa Wehler serves as the Dean of Humanities and Sciences at Central Penn College. She has published on topics of teaching, pedagogy, and student success. Melissa co-manages the open educational resource, The Online Lecture Toolkit, developed to support the needs of educators who want to create effective online video content. She enjoys teaching classes about writing, literature, culture, and film and has won two teaching awards for her student-centered approach.

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Five Ways to Build Community in Online Classrooms - Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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"I'm sorry to bother you, but..." was the opening line of every email I received in the first week of this semester. This line was usually followed by nothing that would actually bother me: a question about the week's materials, a link to an interesting resource, a discussion about a potential research topic, and the like.

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Instructional Platforms to Deliver Instruction

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Instructional Platforms to Deliver Instruction

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Consistency is Key: Choose a Platform to Deliver Instruction and build a system and routine around it for your class.

Pear Deck is an extension to use with GoogleSlides to make lessons student centered.

With Pear Deck, every student can respond to your questions or prompts directly on their own screens.

Teachers can choose to control the advancement of slides using Pear Deck by launching the lesson through the Google Slides Add-On.

After instruction, teachers can post the same assignment allowing students full access to the presentation.

Nearpod: Use this platform to create lesson within the platform, or uploading existing lessons via GoogleSlides, PPTs or PDFs.

Teachers can present material with a more student centered approach.

NearPod boosts student participation with collaborative activities, and formative assessments like Virtual Reality, Polls, Collaborate Boards, and game-based quizzes. Get student insights in real-time and in post-session reports.The basic version (30 students or less) is free.

HyperDocs: Create a HyperDoc to shift the way you deliver synchronous and asynchronous learning.

You could create one HyperDoc for the lesson or week, and post tthe HyperDoc to your GoogleSite or Google Classroom:

Samples of HyperDocs for Every Subject Area

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The Meet Attendance extension allows you to take time-stamped attendance,

The Breakout Rooms extension helps you create randomized small groups and links for breakout rooms.

Teachers can copy and paste the names and links in to the chat box for students to access.

The developer of this extension explains How to Use it.

Takes about 45 minutes to set up, but it is a one time step.

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Relationships are the Foundation of On-Line Learning

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Relationships are the Foundation of On-Line Learning

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Relationships are the Foundation of Online Learning Design. Here’s How We Know.

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Learn how student survey data has helped GOA prioritize and design for meaningful online relationships.

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Virtual Tools Overview for Creating Lessons

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Virtual Tools Overview for Creating Lessons

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Blendspace: is a lesson curator that assists students in  asynchronous learning. This tool integrates with Google Classroom.  It is a tool to organize and curate lessons.

EdPuzzle: Teachers can create and/or import videos.

Teachers can add checks for understanding throughout the video.

Teachers can upload and edit videos from multiple video platforms (YouTube, Khan Academy, etc...).

Teachers can also grade and get analytics on class viewing.

Live Worksheets: teachers can transform your traditional printable worksheets (doc, pdf, jpg...) into interactive online exercises with self-correction.

Students can do the worksheets online and send their answers to the teacher.

Teachers can include sounds, videos, drag and drop exercises, join with arrows, multiple choice... and even speaking exercises, that the students must do using the microphone.

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Create and post in the Chat Box one Google Doc for the entire class to work on.

Set up clear directions on the Google Doc for the Breakout Rooms Routine and Procedure

Review prior to breakout

Each small group records their notes, questions, and top take-aways in a specified area (You can color code or label so they know where to type their response)

Teachers can literally see the doc grow as students work in their small groups, helping you decide which room to pop into next.

When you return to the large group, share the document on your screen and take a gallery walk around the content

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Google Classroom:            Being Clear is Kind

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Google Classroom:            Being Clear is Kind

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Be INTENTIONAL when organizing how you push out your lesson in Google Classroom.

Use visual hierarchy, folders, topics, digital bulletin board, EMOJIS extensions to tag assignment types, etc...

Limit the number of times you post or assign work each day.

Consider creating a GoogleSite as your class homepage to host class materials, digital word walls, calendar of assignments, etc...

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Synchronous Strategies for the "New Normal"

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Synchronous Strategies for the "New Normal"

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Connecting with students is one of the most rewarding aspects of a professor's job. Some faculty hesitate to teach online, frequently offering the rationale: "I want to with my students. There's just not enough interaction and engagement online!" Faculty are not alone in yearning for this connection - students want it too!

Frustrated by the lack of real-time exchanges with students, I incorporated live or synchronous sessions into my online classes a few years ago. I experimented with the latest tools and made adjustments each semester based on feedback from students. To my surprise, students consistently requested more synchronous engagement. After doing so, I gained a new appreciation for the potential of creating meaningful connection virtually.

When many universities rushed to provide remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I leaned on my synchronous experience to train faculty on the pedagogical potential of platforms like Zoom. Training amidst this crisis gave me insights on what instructors new to synchronous teaching struggled with the most. In this article, I share these insights and provide four strategies for optimizing the student experience in synchronous sessions.
#1. Plan and Organize Thoughtfully
Organization and course design are especially important in online environments. In designing your synchronous sessions, think through the pedagogical value of each component, placing your students' learning and experience at the heart of your plan.

Part of being student-centered is recognizing their limited attention spans and planning accordingly. Gavett (2014) notes that many employees spend their virtual meetings doing other work, cooking, eating, or Amazon shopping. Online students are now multitasking more than ever, balancing the extra demands on their time. Running long sessions, especially past 60-90 minutes, increases the likelihood of competing distractions. Carefully review your game plan before each session and create a minute-by-minute schedule. Sharing an outline at the start helps students follow along and you can save valuable time by opening all files you will need ahead of time.

Being efficient requires the instructor to recognize asynchronous portions as complements to live engagement. Ask yourself, "Can I accomplish the same goal asynchronously?" For example, student introductions can be time-consuming in a larger synchronous class. Instead, have students use a Discussion Board or a video-based platform such as FlipGrid. For largely one-way communication, record a video and ask students to watch it before/after class.
#2. Clarify Purpose, Norms, and Expectations
While synchronous sessions may be new to some instructors, oftentimes students are also unfamiliar with this format. Even if they participated in synchronous sessions before, those experiences may vary greatly. Laying the foundations of why and how you conduct your class helps set expectations, creating a shared class culture where students take more responsibility for their participation.

Record a video before your first live session explaining the purpose ("How will these sessions contribute to student learning and growth"), any equipment they will need (e.g., camera/mic), and your expectations of engagement. Clarify aspects such as, "Are these sessions required or optional? How does this fit into my grade? Is there an asynchronous alternative if I cannot join?"

Establishing an expectation of cameras turned on can greatly enrich the experience for students and instructor. For students, cameras create a focused learning environment with less distraction - one much better than "dialing-in from the road." Video also helps the instructor know when students are lost, bored, or at least that they're still present!

The Daily Show host Trevor Noah reminds Comedian Jon Stewart on looking into the camera when speaking.

Instructors should model for students an effective virtual presence. Ensure the lighting in your environment allows students to see you clearly. Stay in the center of the frame and look into the camera when speaking (Don't worry, even Comedian Jon Stewart had to be reminded by The Daily Show host Trevor Noah on how to do this correctly).

Consider investing in an HD webcam, headset, or an external mic (e.g., Blue Yeti). While these may seem like luxuries, being able to see and hear the instructor well greatly enhances the student experience.
#3. Build Community through Faculty-Student and Student-Student Interaction
Social check-ins create community. If I only turn on my camera and audio right at the start of class, that would be similar to walking in the door of my in-person class right at the scheduled start time and going straight into teaching. Whether in-person or online, those precious minutes before and after class are critical for answering questions and connecting with students. Login several minutes before class and greet students as they come in. Consider starting with fun virtual exercises.

Synchronous technologies have evolved considerably from text-based chat rooms common in the 90's. In Zoom, breakout rooms can be used to create student-student interaction for think-pair-share or team-based exercises. Just make sure directions are extra clear before you send them to their virtual rooms and post in your Learning Management System (LMS) beforehand any worksheets or instructions they will need. Zoom even allows you to float the room, checking-in on groups as they work. Students are often most surprised by breakout rooms - they never expected live interaction with their peers in online learning!

#4. Use Technology but Be Careful of Going Overboard

Today's platforms are equipped with so many engagement tools it can feel overwhelming, even for students. I suggest starting with polling as a relatively easy to use option, especially since instructors may already use them in the classroom. Polling can be an effective way to engage students with practice exam questions, ice breakers, or general pulse checks ("Rate your understanding of this concept"). Build polling into your game plan as warm-ups or transitions between activities. Polling can also be used to create student-centered discussion similar to the use of Clickers.

Accessibility is often a challenge in online courses. Thankfully, a number of tools have made accessibility easier. When using cloud recording, Zoom auto-captions the session enabling students to watch a closed-captioned recording after class. If using GoogleSlides, students can see live captioning during class.

In sum, when it comes to technology, take a gradual approach. Sometimes, when faculty learn about all the tools available, in our zeal to create the best possible experience for students, we run the risk of trying to do too much. Avoid jumping headfirst into the bells and whistles, giving yourself time to grow incrementally. As you gain more experience, you'll learn which tools best fit with your teaching style and pedagogical strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has many of us teaching in unfamiliar situations. Perhaps a silver lining has been the widespread practice of synchronous instruction, a potential remedy for the connection students and faculty often miss in traditional online classes. The exponential growth of synchronous sessions will likely shape a "new normal" for online learning, long after the pandemic has passed.
Zahir I. Latheef is an assistant professor of management at the University of Houston-Downtown teaching courses on leadership, teams, and nonprofits. Once a skeptic of online learning, Zahir is now an OLC Advanced Certified Instructor and regularly provides training and coaching for faculty on synchronous instruction. References
Gavett, G. (2014). What people Are Really Doing When They're on a Conference Call. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/08/what-people-are-really-doing-when-theyre-on-a-conference-call

Hakala, C. (2015). Why can't students just pay attention? Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/why-cant-students-just-pay-attention/

Lorenzetti, J.P. (2014). Four crucial factors in high-quality distance courses. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/four-crucial-factors-high-quality-distance-learning-courses/

Madjidi, F., Hughes, H. W., Johnson, R. N., & Cary, K. (1999). Virtual learning environments. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED429565.pdf

Martin, F. & Bolliger, D.U. (2018). Engagement matters: Student perceptions on the importance of engagement strategies in the online learning environment. Online Learning, 22(1), 205222. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1179659.pdf

Moore, E.A. (2014). Improve accessibility in tomorrow's online courses by leveraging yesterday's techniques. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/improve-accessibility-tomorrows-online-courses-leveraging-yesterdays-techniques/

Santhanam, S.P. (2020). A reflection on the sudden transition: Ideas to make Your synchronous online classes more fun. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/ideas-to-make-your-synchronous-online-classes-more-fun/

Shepard, L. (2012). Using student clickers to foster in-class debate. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/using-student-clickers-to-foster-in-class-debate/

St. Amour, Madeline. (2020). A double whammy for students. Inside HigherEd. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/31/student-parents-are-hit-doubly-hard-coronavirus

Udermann, B. (2019). Seven things to consider before developing your online course. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/seven-things-to-consider-before-developing-your-online-course/

Wehler, M. (2018). Five ways to build community in online classrooms. Faculty Focus. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/five-ways-to-build-community-in-online-classrooms/

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Synchronous Strategies for the "New Normal"

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Connecting with students is one of the most rewarding aspects of a professor's job. Some faculty hesitate to teach online, frequently offering the rationale: "I want to with my students. There's just not enough interaction and engagement online!" Faculty are not alone in yearning for this connection - students want it too!

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Consider these tips to foster relationships:

Nothing will beat personal texts and phone call check ins throughout the course

Respond to messages as quickly as possible

Post in discussions and other communal spaces often

Post consistent weekly updates (Monday announcements, Thursday grades, etc)

Create birthday boards, student spotlights, exemplars

Create a space for morning meetings, lunch bunches, coffee talk, etc... once a week (at same time) that are optional, and for ‘fun’ or just to talk and not instructional

Verbal and posted praise and validation as often as possible

"Circulate" your class (Scan Google Meet windows) during Independent Practice: smile, and nod as you look in on kids learning

Create forums where students can reply to prompts and reply to at least 2 classmates with a response/feedback to keep their conversations going

Ongoing/open study session forum for students to post and reply to each other any time

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Using the Bitmoji Extension teachers can create their avatars, and utilize other tools like Google Slides to organize and build a classroom backdrop.

These backdrops can be published and posted to Google Classroom to personalize and invite students to engage with the work.

Students can move through the spaces virtually, clicking on a bookshelf image to get a reading assignment, or on a whiteboard to follow a link to read a science document.

Already Designed Bitmoji Classrooms (Ready for editing)

Build classrooms from scratch in Google Slides using Decor, (additional Background and Decor).

This Google Drive has organized Bitmoji Swag

Horizontal Backgrounds can be used to build your own virtual classroom or Google Classroom banners.

When building classrooms, teachers can Remove a Background from ANY image after saving the image on your desktop.

Create Reading Rooms with links to supplemental audio and video resources:

Elementary/Middle School Ready Made Rooms:  100+ Reading Rooms

More Reading Rooms

Bitmoji Linktree

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15 Awesome Virtual Bitmoji Classroom Ideas

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Have you bit the virtual Bitmoji classroom craze? Pop on over to learn some tips & tricks on how to get started & find inspiration on making your own, too!

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For discussion assessments- formative and summative- consider providing a framework or checklist to help guide you and your students, and:

Choose a bold opening image and compelling instructive title to jump start the discussion

Provide opening Context: what is the purpose, what pre-work will contribute to the discussion, and what is the opening prompt

Consider reviewing and evaluating discussion using a rubric that front loads the skills being built, the evidence needed, and the evaluation criteria

Make sure students have guidance on high-quality synchronous and asynchronous discussion assignments

Provide model responses for both verbal and written discussions

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Intentionally design your classroom flow and structure; stick with it so students can get used to the class routine.

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Online instructors need to be intentional about creating a sense of presence in their courses so that students know that somebody is leading their educational experience. According to Larry Ragan, director of instructional design and development for Penn State’s World Campus, this sense of presence consists of three dimensions:

Persona—This consists of the instructor’s personality, teaching style, and interests—all the characteristics that go into the students’ impression of the instructor.

Social—This refers to the connections instructors make with the students and those that students make with each other to build a learning community.

Instructional—This is the role the instructor plays in guiding students through the learning process.

The need for instructor presence
“In the face-to-face classroom, we don’t actually have to think too much about being present because we’re there—it’s a physical thing. In the online space there is no physicality. I’m not there physically. I don’t see people eye to eye. We may not even be in the same time zone. So how do I convey to the students that there is somebody who is participating, who is a leader in this educational experience?” Ragan says.

A lack of presence can have negative consequences for the learner. As an online learner, Kim Eke, director of Teaching and Learning Interactive at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, experienced a lack of instructor presence. “When professors didn’t seem present, it had a big effect on my satisfaction. I thought, well, they don’t care,” says Eke.

This sense of presence is particularly important for students enrolled solely in online programs, as opposed to on-campus students who take occasional online courses. “For those individuals who are pursuing a degree or certificate in a wholly online environment, the faculty member becomes the connection to that institution. The faculty member is the glue that holds this system together, and so for a student it’s really important to get to know the faculty member at some level. I say at some level because it may vary,” Ragan says. “Maybe the 18-to-22-year-olds aren’t really interested in this idea of learning community. They might say ‘I’ve got that covered. I’ve got my friends. I don’t need my instructional experience to also contain that dimension.’ Whereas the [solely, often adult] online learner may feel isolated from the experience, from the physical dimension of your university.”

Designing for presence
The sense of instructor presence is created through a combination of instructional design and delivery. Videos, photos, narratives—depending on one’s comfort level with the medium—can help create this sense of presence in advance of course delivery. “You can invest a little bit of time and energy in the design phase, say, in the summer prior to putting your course online, developing a nice introduction—this is who I am. Maybe it’s a video. Maybe it’s just a narrative. Whatever vehicle you are most comfortable using. You can invest the time and energy to get the photos right or get a video clip done right and so forth so that when you’re in teaching mode you’re not saying, ‘Shoot, I’d better create something that establishes my persona,’” Ragan says.

Eke cautions against getting enamored of too much technology. “Keep things simple. I would never advocate using all the technologies… The idea is to identify the gaps in your course. Is there something I can do to add a little bit to the community? You don’t have to go whole hog and overboard. Just figure out what makes sense for you and your course.”

Ragan says that faculty members can make technology decisions on their own, but it helps to get input from others, preferably an IT professional or an instructional designer, on what is appropriate for the course and how it might contribute to the learning experience.

Evidence of engagement
When a course is in session, students need to see “evidence of engagement” such as announcements, discussion board posts, and uploads of photos or videos on the part of the instructor, Ragan says. It’s not enough to log in and monitor a course. Instructors need to show that they are active in the course.

Learning management systems can provide some useful data an instructor can use to gauge his or her presence, such as frequency and duration of logging in to a course. Ragan envisions an LMS dashboard that provides instructors (and perhaps a mentor or supervisor) with this data on a regular basis to help the instructor manage his or her presence. “It’s a little Big Brotherish, but I think the capabilities are there for us to begin doing that. I think we’re called as good teachers to be more aware of establishing that teaching presence and making sure that we’re [serving] the need of the students to have us visible,” Ragan says.

Using data analytics in this manner can provide some useful quantitative feedback, but it’s also important to look at qualitative data as well. An indirect way of gauging instructors’ presence is the type of questions coming from students.

More directly, instructors can ask students for feedback throughout the course. “I think in the online environment we have to be more intentional about reaching out and asking those questions, such as ‘How’s it going?’ or ‘How am I doing?’” Ragan says.

You can build in low-stakes evaluation feedback and higher-stakes elements as well. Feedback can be anonymous. For example, at the end of a unit you might ask, “Was this information clear, or were there any points you didn’t understand?”

You also can ask questions specifically about your role as instructor, such as:

Is the timeliness of my responses helpful?

Are the types of responses you’re getting helpful?

Is there anything else I could be doing to help you?

“The students so much appreciate just being asked,” Ragan says.

Excerpted from Creating a Sense of Instructor Presence in the Online Classroom, Online Classroom, 12.10 (2012): 1,3,5.

Post Views: 12,305

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Creating a Sense of Instructor Presence in the Online Classroom

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Online instructors need to be intentional about creating a sense of presence in their courses so that students know that somebody is leading their educational experience. According to Larry Ragan, director of instructional design and development for Penn State's World Campus, this sense of presence consists of three dimensions: Persona-This consists of the instructor's personality, teaching style, and interests-all the characteristics that go into the students' impression of the instructor.

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Remind 101 provides a safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents.

Teachers never see the students' or parents' phone number and likewise, the teacher's phone number is never revealed to students or parents.

Students and parents can use Remind101 with cell phones or by email. Teachers can even schedule messages to be sent on a certain date.

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Consider using Google Slides to create a Digital Notebook to encourage students to stay organized.
Example: Science
Example: Vocab Log
Example: U.S. History

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Since we are new to online learning, embrace that as a communal experience.

Share with your students what you are learning about being successful online, and ask them to do the same

Collect class-wide strategies and practices for online learning

Survey students on their experience and their recommendations

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Calendars like Google Calendar, and note-taking tools like Google Keep, can help us feel more in control.

Plan your day on your Google Calendar, just as you would if you were in school.  Create daily intentions to keep you focused.
Consider Including:

Class Periods

Meetings

Planning Time

Grading Time

Breaks

Times to contact families

Office Hours

For Office Hours:

You can use google calendar to create custom office hour time slots. Post a link in your gmail signature so students and parents can easily sign up.

Calendly is another tool for scheduling one-on-one meetings with students that links to your Google Calendar.

For Note-Taking:
If you like paper note taking tools, Passion Planner has planners you can order, or DOWNLOAD a variety of sheets for free.

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Free Online Appointment Scheduling Software | Calendly

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Calendly is the modern scheduling platform that makes "finding time" a breeze. When connecting is easy, your teams can get more done.

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Create Hand Signals for Levels of Understanding

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Create Hand Signals for Levels of Understanding

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Consider starting with a ‘While You Wait’ slide: the date, the materials the students will need, rotate an inspirational quote or visual, consider playing music, for students to ponder and a question to lead into the content of the session.

Greet students by name as they enter your virtual classroom

Begin with personal check-ins for first 2-3 minutes

Review the expectations: cameras on, on mute, use chat appropriately, put other devices away

Celebrate/Review yesterday's data (whole class/ individual celebrations)

Tip: If using a digital platform (Near Pod, Pear Deck, Jamboard...) to deliver instruction, it may take a few minutes to get everyone logged in.  Have an interim activity (a short reading, reviewing expectations, discussing an image) while everyone gets logged in.

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"New thoughts on best practice for distance learning"

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Teachers can download the Screencast-O-Matic extension to record an entire desktop while delivering key morning meeting, announcements, direct instruction, etc...

Users can create AND edit videos up to 15 minutes

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Consider using your email signature to spark learning and connection.

Under your email's general settings, you can personalize your "Signature."

Update the book you are reading, add a fun writing prompt, share a helpful link and more.

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Create a Google Site Demo Video

Sample Classes:

AP Biology

AP Psychology

Middle School

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Use the following links to add Chrome Extensions

Split your Screen

Break Out Rooms

Updated Grid View

Bitmoji

Emoji Keyboard

Meet Attendance

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Include timers throughout your lesson to encourage urgency

Consider using discussion boards or the chat box for Do Nows/ "YOU" (stay consistent)

Keep to 5-10 minutes

Review Do Now/ Lesson Objective/ Agenda

Consider creating checklists for students so they understand what success looks like each day

Identify the parts of the lesson that students may struggle with; spend bulk of lesson on that skill

Schedule Checks for Understanding and conversations often in your synchronous lessons:

Use the chat box

Create polls (using GoogleMeet, Poll everywhere, PearDeck, NearPod, etc...).

Call on students to turn on their mic and share out responses

Use breakout rooms for small group discussions and activities

Identify which part of the lesson lends itself to synchronous vs. asynchronous learning

When students are in synchronous learning, they should be actively engaging with the work

Exit ticket/ Closure

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Facebook:

Teaching During COVID-19

The Digital Teacher

Bitmoji Craze for Educators

Digital INBs & Binders

TikTok

Tyler Tarver on TikTok

Tyler Tarver on TikTok

TheCraftyScienceTeacher on TikTok

TikTokJen on TikTok

ksam_teaches on TikTok

roxyteaches on TikTok

Ashley Guerrero on TikTok

Andrew Stella175 on TikTok

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Consider sending a weekly email, or better yet a video, welcoming students to a new week and reflecting on the previous week's assignments. Think of it as opportunity to "come alive" and be vulnerable with your students.

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by TeachThought Staff

Good assessment is frequent assessment.

Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand-the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge.

On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands. More commonly, the return will be significantly lower as the wording of questions, the student's sense of self-efficacy, or other factors diminish their assessment performance. It sounds obvious, but a student is a human being with an entire universe of personal problems, distraction, and related challenges in recalling the information in the form the assessment demands.

This makes a strong argument for frequent assessment, as it can be too easy to over-react and "remediate" students who may be banging against the limits of the assessment's design rather than their own understanding. Rather than re-teaching, sometimes all that is necessary is re-measuring.

It is a huge burden (for both teachers and students) to design, write, complete, grade, and absorb the data into an instructional design sequence on a consistent basis. So why not frequent, simple assessments?
Simple Assessments
The word 'simple' here is misleading. Rather than describing the cognitive load on the student, it instead describes the complexity of the assessment form itself. The simpler the assessment-in terms of process and logistics-the more 'purely' it can function as a tool to get at what a student actually understands, and help you identify how to help them.

Then, due to their brevity, they're simple to grade-in fact, you can grade them as exit slips-which makes taking the data and informing instruction (the whole point of assessment) a much simpler process as well.
1. New Clothes
Take a given topic-thesis statements, push-pull factors, the scientific process, etc.-and describe how it can be used in some way other than how you've been taught.

Example of Student Response: We've learned the scientific process by looking at how actual scientists study new things, but the scientific process would also make an excellent tool for detectives to use while pursuing criminals. It would allow them to observe data, form theories, test theories while collecting more data, and draw conclusions that can then be judged in a court of law.
2. Dos & Don'ts
List 3 Dos and 3 Don'ts when using, applying, relating to the content (e.g., 3 Dos and Don'ts for solving an equation).

Example of Student Response: When adding fractions, DO find a common denominator, DO add the numerators once you've found a common denominators, DON'T simply add the denominators
3. Three Most Common Misunderstandings
List what you think might be the three most common misunderstandings of a given topic based on an audience of your peers.

Example of Student Response: In analyzing tone, most people probably confuse mood and tone, forget to look beyond the diction to the subtext as well, and to strongly consider the intended audience.
4. Yes/No Chart
List what you do and don't understand about a given topic-what you do on the left, what you don't on the right, but you overly-vague responses don't count. Specificity matters!

Example of Student Response: In learning about paragraph structure (Do Understand): what a topic sentence is, how many sentences a paragraph should have, that a paragraph should be about one idea; (Don't Understand) how a paragraph can have a conclusion, how to know when I've given enough supporting details in the paragraph, how to revise a paragraph
5. Three Questions
Ask three questions about the topic, then rank them in terms of their importance/value.

Example of Student Response: Low Importance: Does the prefix "tri" mean 3? Medium Importance: Is the triangle the only 3-sided geometrical figure? High Importance: Why don't triangles show up very often in nature (as so many other shapes do)?
6. Explain What Matters
Explain the most critical part of a given topic to a self-selected audience (must clarify) in two or fewer sentences. (Audience can be anyone!)

Example of Student Response: The most important part of a thesis statement is clarity and conviction, so I'll explain that one to Jay-Z: A thesis statement is kind of like the hook or title of one of your songs-it delivers the message that the song goes on to explain. Feel me?
7. Big Picture
Diagram the context-where does it fit in and how does it function in its natural "bigger picture." This is good for abstract or right-brain thinkers.

Example of Student Response: It is impossible to understand the rules we live by and how they're formed without understanding the 3 branches of government.
8. Venn Diagram
Compare/Contrast a given topic to a tangent topic (e.g., the water cycle to distillation, symbolism to allusion, etc.)

Example of Student Response: A Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting symbolism and allusion, or tone and mood.
9. Draw It
Draw what you do understand.

Example of Student Response: A drawing of what an adjective thinks about a noun, or a how much smaller in size the thousandth's place is compared to the ten's place.
10. Self-Directed Response
Prove to me you understand in diagram, written, or related form in a way that a stranger would understand.

Example of Student Response: I wrote this chorus of a song I've been thinking of that would explain this character's motivation....

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10 Simple Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds

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From 3-2-1 to Do's and Don'ts and concept maps, here are 10 simple assessments you can complete in about 90 seconds.

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Dara Feldman Slides (PDF)
Dara Feldman Handouts

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Diigo is a social bookmarking website that allows users to bookmark and tag Web pages. Additionally, it allows users to highlight any part of a webpage and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or a whole page.

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Build a Classroom Routine

Encourage Students Participation

Raise Hands

Cold Call

Thumbs Up/ Thumbs Down

Asking questions

Narrate the Positive

Use student names and examples

Be present in the classroom (camera on)

Provide clear directions before an activity

Ask a student to reiterate directions and expectations

Utilize least invasive strategies

Whole classroom reminders about what you want to see

Use timers on PPT slides

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End a Bit Early for Questions and Conversation

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End a Bit Early for Questions and Conversation

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Rather than plan for content right until the end, save time for reflection and connection.

Celebrate the positive and acknowledge the challenges.

Save the lesson recording, and rename it to easily find it later.

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Virtual Tools for Assessing Understanding

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Virtual Tools for Assessing Understanding

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Edulastic:  FA will utilize Edulastic to administer and analyze assessment data: exit tickets, tests, quizzes, unit assessments, etc...

Quiz Tools:

Quizizz: is a game like tool to quiz students at home or in class.  Teachers can search pre-made quizzes or create their own formative or summative assessments.

Kahoot!: Teachers can create interactive and competitive activities to introduce new material or review old content.

Google Forms: A Google Drive app that allows teachers to create forms to create quiz questions, assign point values, and upload answers for easy grading.

Quizlet allows teachers and students to search through a bank of flashcards, quizzes, tests and games or to create their own.

Many high school and college textbooks have premade flashcards uploaded if you search by the textbook title.

Grading:
Kaizena is an extension and a website for providing students with verbal feedback on their digitally-uploaded work.

Teachers can highlight or speak to give verbal feedback and attach teacher-created, reusable resources to student work.