This page includes many links to help generate ideas and inspiration for activities to use in a distance learning, hybrid, or face-to-face FYE course.
- Polina Boily’s Slides from the Workshop “Breaking the Ice – Virtually”
- YouTube Channel: “Elevate Experiences”
- This YouTube Channel has a lot of ideas for virtual and in-person icebreakers and other activities.
- The importance of icebreakers in an online classroom
- 21 Free Fun Icebreakers for Online Teaching
- PollAnywhere Icebreakers
- 26 Fun Icebreaker Games
- Emojipedia
- Need emojis for your polls, chat, video conferencing, or anything else you can think of? Check out this site to copy+paste where needed!
Helpful and Fun Websites
- Conceptboard
- A collaborative online whiteboard where you and your class can create sticky notes, vote on notes, brainstorm, etc…
- Brightful
- “Have fun, build trust, boost teamwork.”
- “Just because you’ve moved your meetings online, it doesn’t mean that you have to lose the human connection. Play our games to spark excitement and laughter in your virtual gathering.”
- FlipGrid
- A website that allows teachers to create “grids” to facilitate video discussions. Each grid is like a message board where teachers can pose questions, called “topics,” and their students can post video responses that appear in a tiled grid display.
- Check our their website/blog to learn more about recent updates and how to use it!
- Kahoot
- A game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes. Unleash the fun in classrooms, offices and living rooms!
- Mural
- A digital workspace for visual collaboration…think virtual sticky notes!
- Poll Everywhere
- Add live audience response activities to presentations and watch engagement in class
- Slido
- An easy-to-use Q&A and polling platform for live or remote meetings, events, or classes
- Wheel of Names
- A simple and visual way to pick names for groups and projects during class
A Few More Ideas
Examples shared by the University of Wisconsin include:
- Personal Introductions – students are asked to talk about their professional interests, goals for the course, personal interests, etc. One option is to have students develop video introductions in Canvas.
- Eight nouns – students use eight nouns that best describe themselves.
- Five pictures – students create a collage of five pictures that best describe themselves.
- Two truths and a lie – students must post two truths about themselves and one lie and classmates have to guess which item is untrue.
Examples shared by the Academy of Art University include:
- Common ground (for Zoom) – groups (4-6 learners) have 5 minutes to write a list of everything they all have in common.
- Burning questions – students write 1-3 “burning questions” they have about the course.
- Forced analogies – the instructor posts two seemingly unrelated nouns and students have to post as many similarities or connections between them as possible.