Online Icebreaker: Promoting Student/Teacher

InteractionThe Online Mood Builder

by Elvie Santos

Goal

To encourage and promote online class interaction by engaging on fun and ‘getting-to- know-you-

better’ online activities.

Justification:• Need to be more creative due to

The need to know each other better, i.e., student-teacher and student-student relationships.

minimize miscommunication due to lack of face-to-face interaction.

Have participants warmed up, eager and ready to learn.

• Thus, it is important to have more in and out of class student-mentor/facilitator contact to promote student engagement or involvement and sustain motivation and interest of students in doing online work.

Other Reasons:

• Although our student-netizens are internet savvy, they are still concerned and uneasy about this new way of learning and would be grateful for a supportive mentor who can create a good atmosphere for online learning and participation by:a) helping participants integrate into a group;b) helping them feel comfortable working together through

good listening, developing online social skills, building rapport with mentors and breaking out cliques.

c) in short, promoting cooperation and sense of online class “teamship” notwithstanding the lack of face-to-face interaction.

In Summary:• Icebreakers, indeed, can play an important role in

helping online participants integrate and connect with one another and thus promote collaborative learning.

• Further, icebreakers can enhance your teaching by helping to stimulate class cooperation and participation whether online or face-to-face class interactions.

• Thus, mentor needs to ‘reach out’ and have a frequent dialogue or discussions with students.

Some Terminologies to remember:

• Online Icebreaker – a strategy to breakdown the online walls and get to know one another despite lack of face-to-face interaction.

FYI: The term "icebreaker" comes from the saying "break the ice", which in turn comes from special ships called "icebreakers" that are designed to break up ice in arctic regions. And just as these ships make it easier for other ships to travel, an icebreaker helps to clear the way for learning to occur by making the learners more comfortable and encouraging conversation.

How to engage students?

• Online icebreaker should be short, simple and appropriate for a wide age range.

• Aside from the brief bio or CV of the mentor and of the online participants, here are some of my favorite online activities from eCollege.com:

How to engage students?

• Misscomm-puter-unication (Crystal Thomas). Ask the class to share their most embarrassing mishap using a computer. For example, replying to the wrong person in an email. The mentor should be the first to share his/her own ‘shocking’ cyber experience.

• Good things come in Threes (Carol Bates). Example: ask each student to list his/her 3 favorite websites, 3 favorite activities and 3 favorite people.

• Memory Lane (Sarah Odom). To ‘breakdown’ the differences in age, ethnicity, other things and to close or expose the generation gaps that might exist, ask students to list three (3) major world events that happened in 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 r had never heard of them at all.

How to engage students?

• 2 lies and a Truth (by Suhana Chikatla). Each student is asked to list 3 interesting things about him/her self. Two must be lies and one must be true. Other students vote to determine which interesting thing is a lie. The student with the most incorrect votes wins.

• For more online icebreaker activities, please refer to the sources cited.

How to engage students?

My class icebreakers:

For my own Tax101 class this semester (and since this is a very ‘hot’ and relevant topic to all taxpayers now), I shall have….

the ‘PDAF challenge’.

Given the chance to receive P1 billion PDAF, each student would be asked to list 3 ‘projects’ where to spend the money for. There is no right or wrong answer so students should not be afraid of any legal sanction.

Image from philSTAR.com

A rainbow appears, and given the chance to find that pot of gold to fulfill a one-of-a-lifetime dream, what is that dream you would want fulfilled?

Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow.

Icebreaker Exercise:

• Having enjoyed the different icebreakers you had and given examples and cited resources, construct a one-page icebreaker for your own class. Upload this in the separate DF on the Icebreaker Exercise. TYVM.

Resources:www.usaonline.southalabama.edu

http://www.learningcircuits.com/2001/jul2001/geek.html at ASTD's Online Magazine All About E-learning.

http://webconferenceguru.com/2012/05/01/icebreakers-for-the-live-virtual- classroom/

http://www.google.com.ph/imgres?um=1&sa=N&biw=837&bih=391&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbnid=11CkLf5r3yhTPM:&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PDAF

http://insight.typepad.co.uk/40_icebreakers_for_small_groups.pdf

http://www.ldrc.ca/projects/miinventory/miinventory.php#form

http://www.google.com.ph/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=837&bih=391&tbm=isch&tbnid=b6x-BrL4-5NZwM:&imgrefurl=http://www.adherecreative.com/

http://www.onegentleman.biz/news/news-images/EcoTech-Cartoon-sized.jpg