[ARCHIVED] Does anyone have any experience/suggestions for interactive icebreakers in Canvas for an online course?

[scottdennis]

I totally stole this topic from Linkedin, but thought people here might have some good ideas...

We are designing an orientation and introduction to Canvas as the LMS for an online program. We would like to introduce Canvas to the students through an activity (perhaps a team activity), something quick and fun for them to use the features of Canvas, but to also tie it to a learning outcome. Does any one have any experience or suggestions about an activity to try?

[kmeeusen]

Scott:

Have you considered the tried-&-true scavenger hunt?

You could provide groups or individuals with a list of activities and locations within the Canvas classroom. You could even prepare a special module for this. have them navigate to a page, with a clue for the next activity, which upon completion includes the clue for the next activity.  You could provide opportunities to navigate, post a discussion, submit an assignment and attempt a quiz. All in an orientation module where they are actively learning while doing.

Kelley

[mpoole]

Similarly, I am working on a course now that asks students to answer a survey on the first page of a module, then navigate to see a chart of the results (that part is done with google forms) and then the next page is a discussion where they can converse about the responses and then finally they submit a reflection and a question.

[scottdennis]

What are you asking in the initial survey, Melissa?  I used to work with a nursing program that had students complete a "dashboard survey" about conditions in their own communities (they were distance ed students).

[mpoole]

We are a high school so we are asking favorite subject, fall sport, favorite study snack, and thing they are most looking forward to about coming to our school.

[drleroyhill]

Hi Scott,  The key here is try to make an emotional connection during orientation. Here is what I will be using for one of my courses this coming semester.

Photo of coins.

Before you begin the process of sharing and collaboration that is so essential to the academic process.  So look in your pocket, bag, on your desk, anywhere and find a coin. On the coin there is a date. First introduce yourself and then, using the date on the coin, state something about yourself, which references that date.

[scottdennis]

Interesting, LeRoy.  That is one I hadn't heard before.

[baird_whelan]

This isn't specific to Canvas, but I've combined the two truths and a lie icebreaker with recording from your webcam (in Canvas, Blackboard, Classroom, and Moodle). Everyone seems to enjoy it.

Here are the basic instructions. The link at the end is to a short course features overview video, which mentions the first time I tried this with the teacher and all the students. Had a 95% success rate for people completing the activity. I believe the incorporation of short and specific support resources and the activity being low pressure (non-graded) were the most significant factors in the high success rate. We provided a low tech option, so there might have been less anxiety for the participants.

Just one the scaffolding methods for introducing tech features, while not making it all about the tools.

Hope that helps,

-baird

Forum Instructions

For our introductions to each other, we will be using the Two Truths and a Lie Icebreaker Activity. You are not required to make a video (you could just post text), but the Video post is much more fun and a better way to get to know each other. The steps are:

1. Watch your Instructor's video.
2. Read the How to Record and Share Video Using the Content Editor instructions or Mobile Instructions. (Designer note - you'll need to create and/or link to effective support/how to resources)
3. By Midnight Wednesday, create a thread to record and post your own Video in the Greetings and Introductions Forum.
   Note - Remember to keep it short, about 3 minutes at the most.
4. As each person creates a video thread post, reply by trying to guess which claim is the Lie.
   Note - You don't have to record another video, just text is fine for the replies.
5. By Midnight Friday, submit a reply on your thread revealing which claim was the lie.

Have Fun! This is not a graded activity, but gives us a chance to get to know each other and see how the tools in the course work. If you end up just having too much difficulty, or don't have the correct technology, you can simply submit your post as text.

HSU Online Course Gallery - SW 550 - YouTube

[caldwell]

I created a discussion forum in Canvas Commons that includes some simple instructions on how to use a webcam to record video in a forum. If anyone wants to check it out (it's pretty simple), search for "introduce yourself" in the Commons (look in the Discussion category.)

[JGarton]

For high school students:

Choose 2 of the questions below to respond to in a complete sentence. Once you've posted your response, read those left my other students and reply to their posts.

1. What as the last movie you watched?
2. What is your favorite TV show?
3. What do you usually have for breakfast?
4. What is your favorite sandwich?
5. How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
6. What upcoming event are you looking forward to?
7. What is the last book you read?
8. What is your favorite restaurant?
9. What is something that no one here knows about you?
10. What's your idea of the perfect day?

[dlyons]

A former colleague of mine, Deactivated user​, had a clever way of getting students familiar with the media recording capabilities in Canvas. The course was about effective webinars, so his students spend a lot of time in front of the camera/microphone, and the old "tell us why you're in this program" icebreakers are pretty tired. Instead, Mike had his students hum a tv show theme song (posted as a discussion reply using the media recorder) and the other students had to guess what it was.

It's simple, and it's silly, but it served two important purposes:

1. it forced students to confirm that had a working camera and microphone the first week of class (important when you're in a webinar class)

2. it forced students to confront doing something they weren't used to doing, and record and publish it to boot

[scottdennis]

Whoah, I like that, David (and Mike).  Talk about getting people out from behind their veil a little bit.

[jamely]

I had the opportunity to use this in a Video Games and Learning graduate-level class, and it worked astonishingly well. Out of 17 students, 15 choose to post a video of themselves humming or whistling (or playing the guitar!) a favorite video game theme for the others to guess. For those that were uncomfortable recording themselves, they choose to post audio or video clips that were sourced on the internet. This was completely optional, and judging by the amount of discussion posts that it caused, it succeeded in laying the grounds for a successful online community of learning. We had over 81 posts, which only 1 introductory post per person was required.

Thanks for the idea!

[snugent]

Here is a couple of I've gathered through the years. I like the Color Jacuzzi the best. Works great with art classes. The music favorites was used in face-to-face staff development activity and was a lot of fun. I think it would work well online as well.

Color Jacuzzi

For this ice breaker have students pick their favorite color and answer question associated with their favorite color.

Red is a strong color that is often used excite or warn people. How does red excite you?

Orange is the motivation color - what motivates you?

Yellow is the inspiration or creativity color - what was the best idea you have ever had?

Green is the money color - what is the dumbest thing you ever did with money?

Blue is the sky’s the limit color - what is your favorite daydream about your future?

Indigo is an odd, or different color - what is the most daring thing you ever did?

Purple is the color of royalty - if you were ruler of the universe for a day - what is the first thing you would do?

Wizard of OZ

Pick which character best describes you and why

Top Ten List

As a group, have the class develop a Top Ten list about something. This could be something that relates to the topic of the class, or something that is just for fun. For example, if you are teaching an online Film Studies course, you may ask your class to develop the Top Ten Worst movies of all time. As people add to the list, have others reply asking questions about why the person posting that it was bad, or argument for why it wasn’t bad.

Two Lies and A Truth

Have students list three interesting things about themselves. (I own two iguanas; I once shook hands with Tom Cruise; and I love to waterski.) Two must be lies and one must be true. Other students must vote to determine which interesting thing is a lie. The student with the most incorrect votes wins.

Memory Lane

Ask the students to list three major world events that happened the year in which they were born, then have the other members guess the year and post a short response on whether they remembered the events or had never heard of them.

Miscomm-puter-unication

Ask the class to share their most embarrassing mishap using a computer. Share with the students your own experience, for example, replying to the wrong person in an email. This will loosen them up and cause a few to chuckle before we embark on a whole new way of thinking…using technology instead of paper and pen.

Music Favorites

Have students relate and tell the story of the first and last song/music they purchased and in what format (disc, tape, download etc). Students could even embed the music from their favorite music streaming website if desired.

Adjective Description

List 5 appropriate adjectives that describe you. Explain why you selected each one and how each fits you.

Ice Breakers via Illinois Online Network
http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/OTAI/IceBreakers.asp

[kmeeusen]

Wow, Susan!

Thanks for sharing the great list of icebreakers.

Kelley

[sara_newman]

Hi Scott,

I think I was part of your original LinkedIn thread on this topic and I still use the Two Truths & One Lie discussion forum (not mine .pdf but an example of how to do this in a discussion forum) to get my students engaged. Always entertaining for me and super simple to implement for the teacher's POV.

And, from reading the replies you've received from THIS post, I'm excited to try several of their suggestions, as well!

Miss you in WA!

[scottdennis]

Miss you-all too, Sara!  There are a lot of good ideas here.  I hope some of them work well for you.

[DaleDrees]

I knew this one professor who always did a scavenger hunt for her face-to-face students and you knew when they were doing this on campus because she made them do fun activities like take a picture with your scavenger hunt group in elevator, or posing in front of the building by the mascot statue, etc… and then post to the ice breaker discussion board.

She then migrated to online but kept the scavenger hunt alive in the ice breaker discussion board. She would give them a list of activities that they had to talk about (nothing about the course, just fun things) and a couple of them would always have the task of taking a picture of something that involve them being creative about completing one of the activities. I will see if I can find the list of activities and post later.

[salgado_y]

Scott these are many great ideas and I think I may want to try a few myself. I wanted to suggest one that I use on my current on-line; well two that I alternate...they are both AVID (Advancing Via Individual Determination) strategies that I tweak to fit online; the first is Paper Bag Speech. They have to produce a picture of a brown bag and include three important things they want to share about themselves by putting visual representation of pictures and talking about it (with the camera and voice in Canvas) - this would be a great icebreaker because they would have to sit in front of the camera to do this, rather than produce the power point or pictures. I use this at the end of the course as well as an evaluation of sort; give three or four things you liked about the course and why or one or two things they would change and why? Again, writing extensively, but I can see how Canvas would be great for this. The other strategy is called a Mandala Circle, where they again, use pictures to represent themselves and others have to guess what it is. On the 3rd day, the person post a confirmation of what the pictures represent and see if those in the class guess correctly. It is a fun activity that they all seem to enjoy.

[snugent]

Here are some more great ones

Building Social Community in an Online Course through Online Icebreakers! | Virtual Gadfly

[kmeeusen]

Thanks for the link, Susan!

[rdhorton]

Yes! Thank for the link. Super helpful!

[925392482]

Hi Scott,

Such a great list of activities - will be sharing them with our faculty at Pierce.

One Intro activity I use in our Teaching Online course for faculty has been fun for me to use and builds community right away. I asking participants to give an answer to this question:

• Besides your loved ones, pets or family, what are three things you would take with you if you had to escape from a real Zombie Apocalypse (ZA)?
• Briefly, tell us why for each thing you are taking is important to you.  You can provide text descriptions, images, a video or audio post, whatever helps you describe your ZA survival kit
• Go find 3-4 other classmates posts in this discussion and read what they are planning to take with them. See if you can find someone who has items that compliment or add to the items you've chosen for survival. For example if you have matches, who might have a camp-stove or cooking utensils? Comment on their post and explain why you think it would be a good idea for the two of you to work together against the Zombies

I also use comics to set the tone - definitely not too serious for this discussion:

View Larger

[stephanie_johns]

My ice-breaker questions are simple and similar to many of the other respondents, for example:

• Recommend a movie or book and tell us why you recommend it
• Tell us where you went on your last vacation
• Share an unusual or interesting fact about yourself
• Describe a hobby or what you like to do in your spare time (if you have any)

Students are then required to read the responses of other students (you can adjust the number depending on the class size) and ask each at least one question about their posting. For example, a student mentioned that she had lived abroad most of her life. The other students asked her questions about what other languages she spoke, what her favorite country/cuisine/etc. was, and so on. Another student had had a similar experience, and the two started their own conversation thread. It got a little crazy by the end, with more than 100 posts, and we all had to keep revisiting the discussion to respond to each other's questions. But this activity set an inviting and inclusive tone for the course, and the discussion posts were really interesting to read.

[ewander]

I took an online course a couple summers ago from  @travis_thurston ​ - he asked us in a discussion what super power we would like to have and why. I enjoyed this because we could really have fun with the question and get to know each other in the process. He thought about what he liked and what he wanted to know about us and it was a simple question that we answered and talked about for days at the beginning of the course.

[cfinke]

This is a great idea, Erin!  Thank you for sharing.