Even More Community Building Ideas to Start the Year in Middle School!

Outline

There will be an overview of the process of how I created these activities, tips for the tech tools that I used, and the activities themselves. Activities shared will include a Goosecahse EDU scavenger hunt, app smashing with Padlet and Blooket as well as Book Creator and Google Slides to create student trivia, Summer Highlight Reels in Padlet Sandbox, app smashing Canva with AR Mark to create augmented reality social media newsfeeds, app smashing with Canva and Kami for a session or "Love it or Leave it", student profiles designed in Kami, Canva BINGO, an old school game show using mechanical buzzers, and the culminating projects where students created podcasts in Adobe Express or digital name tags in either Canva or Adobe Express as well as animated videos in Adobe Express. I will also share tips on creating with artificial intelligence in Canva and Adobe Express (60 minutes). Student examples of their culminating projects (podcasts, animated videos and digital name tags) will be shared (30 minutes). Educators will have access to a plethora of resources that they can use in their classroom to incorporate games and community building activities. This includes a curated Padlet with all of the activities for any classroom and the project websites, checklists, and rubrics

Supporting research

How to Use Gameplay to Enhance Classroom Learning: https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-use-gameplay-enhance-classroom-learning/

Using Gamification to Ignite Student Learning: https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-gamification-ignite-student-learning/

Columbia CTL - Community Building in the Classroom: https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/community-building/

Building Community Before the First Day of Middle School and Beyond: https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-community-middle-school/