Ask HN: How can I make classes taught over Zoom fun? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I make classes taught over Zoom fun?

9 pointsclosetkantian13 comments

Do you guys have any suggestions for games or interactive activities I can do in Zoom classes with around 10 students?

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I hear Call of Duty is a fun multiplayer game.

That's what you are competing with.

Either the subject matter content is engaging or the students would rather be somewhere else.

Like on their phones.

Boil it down to the basics and put in the hard work to make the content interesting.

There is not a shortcut.

Good luck.

I'd pick something that you would do if you were in the same room IRL.

Or choose from here: https://teambuilding.com/blog/zoom-games

I had this same challenge teaching Scratch programming over Zoom during the 2020 pandemic.

I found one lady that had some good videos on techniques.

Here are the two I found most useful.

I would ask a question like, which character should we choose for the program. Kids loved being able to offer their opinion. Engagement was through the roof.

The other thing I did was add a little humor into anything I was presenting on the screen. Screens full of text were a turnoff. But when I had funny but related pictures and videos, that really increased retention of the material.

Do you have the links for the lady's videos?

I might, I’ll dig through my notes and get back to you.

I used breakout rooms for small group activities. The activities were mostly discussion and solving problems. I would hop from room to room to help out (and make sure student were on task). After, I would bring all these student back together and randomly call on a student to present.

I used a flipped classroom with video lectures created by someone else so these breakout room activities could be over 50% of the time.

You've got, essentially, a proscenium. You can have things surprisingly come on-scene that wouldn't have the same element of surprise in a room, because the thing would be obviously already in the room.

It's going to take a lot of creativity to figure out what to do with that, though...

Try https://www.baamboozle.com/ remote learning teachers use it to make learning games and share their screen. And there's already lots of good content on it.

Make sure you have basics right: good sound, lightning and upgraded camera (or phone connected as a webcam).

Regarding activities, there are bunch of online games like skribbl, geoguessr, song guesser and others.

ask open ended questions and aggressively try to get the class to participate.

if you are a math instructor, honestly it would be better if you don't try to make it "interesting"

I agree with this. Force participation always forces me to focus and actually think, which albeit a bit painful but is what I'm supposed to do (to spend the $$).

it's not for everyone, but an interactive quiz with obviously unfair choices can get students to talk. For example,

https://create.kahoot.it/details/b3a616c4-f740-4367-b4cb-3f7...

Quizzes where people just have to enter into the chat, short breaks to reenergise

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