As I stared at my computer monitor during one of my work zoom meetings, I couldn't help but wonder how we were going to keep kids, ages 10 -18, interested in our Pathfinder program for one hour much less two hours online. I was barely paying attention now..and this was work!
After some discussions with the leadership team we came up with the following:
-we kept the three hour Saturday afternoon progressive classes since the kids were in smaller groups
-adjusted the twice-a-month large Wednesday club meetings to one hour instead. This would help the kids from getting zoom fatigue.
But which online platform had the tools to engage across that computer monitor? Google Classroom seemed empty. Kids are tired of Kahoot, and having Quizlet was not something that kids were looking forward to. So it was a surprise when we stumbled upon Mentimeter. It had the interaction tools like word cloud, question and answer, etc and it had unlimited participants which kept costs down. Wow! It also had hearts and thumbs ups providing realtime feedback, which I love.
After pressing “Submit” to the Mentimeter annual subscription button, my mind hesitantly asked the question: “Can we REALLY do this?”
For I can do everything through Christ, who give me strength. Philippians 4:13 NLT
Next: Mic check...1..2..3..