Like many of you, I've been trying to figure out how to make my Google Meets interactive and fun. We've done digital breakouts, Kahoot, Quizziz, Legends of Learning, scavenger hunts, and the like, but most of these have still lacked the conversation piece that I crave. Half the time it feels like I'm sitting in front of a one-way conversation, and while there are some conversations in the chat, I am mostly holding a soliloquy while students are working through those activities.
This week I am going to try something a little different, and am excited about the possibilities. Taking inspiration from NASA's Image of the day and the Change My Mind meme that keeps popping up in several of my Social Media feeds, I created the column Padlet where I placed three images and ask the students to respond to each without naming the content of the image. The way I envision this is that students will be able to do a reverse image search, find out what the picture is showing and open up an article/webpage with some information that they can read and share as a comment. The "Change My Mind" column is an addition that I envision working much the same way, where students can do a quick search on the topic (or use their background knowledge) and write a sentence or two backed up with facts/graphs to support their claim.
If you are interested in doing something like this, good places to search for those images to share with students include:
Earth Observatory Image of the Day
NASA's Image of the day
What's going on in this Picture - New Your Times
Electron Microscope Photography - Twisted Sifter and Getty Images
Smithsonian Magazine Photo of the Day
Let me know what you think. What other interactive activities are you doing during your GoogleMeets/Zoom calls?
