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| Mr Men Books by Roger Hargreaves |
I am a big believer in fun in education as are Pratt and Palloff (2010). That’s why I came up with 2 activities that tick several boxes in an Effective Icebreaker Checklist designed by Conrad and Donaldson (2011). It’s fun and non-threatening, it is person-focused, not content-focused, it requires learners to read one-another’s entries, it requires using imagination and being creative, and learners are required to read each other’s entries and respond to one another (only in one of them they do not directly respond to one another but have a follow-up quiz instead).
Black Box Recorder - Child Psychology
Activity: Mr Men and Little Miss
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: the learners are invited to open the images of the characters from popular children’s books ‘Mr Men’ and ‘Little Miss’ which Roger Hargreaves commenced in 1971 and which since then got televised as well (See the images attached). The students and the instructor are invited to find 2 positive and 2 negative characters of Mr Men or Little Miss that best describe their personality. They are also invited to comment on at least one other student’s description that is similar to theirs or someone’s whose they find exceptionally funny or clever.
Notes: Additionally students are invited to use the picture of a chosen Mr Man or Little Miss as their avatar if they don’t feel like putting up one of their own.
The technique I described goes well with Pratt and Palloff (2010) speaking of the importance of the informal introduction that should be initiated by the instructor, they noted that many instructors’ introduction sounds like their Curriculum Vitae. They continue saying that talking more about the human aspect of their life an instructor becomes more of an equal player in the learning community. At the same time an instructor can provide their students with a visual, a graphic image that some students might want to use as their avatar instead of a photo if they prefer to stay anonymous for personal reasons (Pratt and Palloff, 2010).
Pratt and Palloff (2010) recommend to throw another icebreaking activity in the middle of the course and reenergise the course in a fun way. For the middle of the course ice-breaker I would recommend the students to use a choice of interactive software that is very easy to use and one of them (Voki) fits the description of the free software Pratt and Palloff (2010) were talking about saying you can have an animal, a person or even a plant talking with your recorded voice.
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: the learners are asked to create a one minute Voki / a short Prezi / a Glogster Poster introduction that is centered around a question “What are the 3 things most important to you in your life and why?” for which they will receive extra credit. The follow up activity that goes into the next week is a little fun quiz that includes questions from all the students’ Voki’s / Prezi’s / Glogster’s and those who get all the questions right will receive some more extra credit.
Notes: This activity will also get students to use a fun easy app that can be used in the future in a presentation setting. The instructor will determine how much credit the students get for doing the task but the credit system makes the activity more motivated than if it is just optional.
Examples of all the software used you can see on my school’s website (it is in Russian unfortunately)
Prezi and Voki Here
and Glogster Here
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| Little Miss Books by Roger Hargreaves |
Here is mine: I am a Little Miss Everything really like most of us but one of the strongest in me is Little Miss Giggles (7). I love giggling over things and making people smile, I even have a ‘Whimsy’ day where a chosen friend and I are supposed to come up with whimsical ideas over a glass of cider. Thus was born an apron that has Vladimir Putin (the infamous Russian President) cross-stitched on it. Big success that was. Actually after reading what I have just written I might be assigned Little Miss Cuckoo (not invented yet).
And I think of myself as Little Miss Wise (21), too. I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle Spiritual teachings, which is a mix of Zen and Mystical Christianity. Always and forever stopping myself from having the end of the world exaggerated reaction to things. Like when Ruble is plummeting (my business depends on that currency as it caters to Russians) I keep reminding myself that nothing in life has an absolute value and that the world of form is transient and ever changing.
My husband says I imagine myself to be Little Miss Wise but I am in reality Little Miss Scary and Little Miss Stubborn. Scary because I am Russian, all British people I know do not get tired of making KGB spy and other inappropriate jokes about me. Stubborn because I sometimes find it hard to see others’ point of view, though I am working on it.
All in all this is what my ginger half-Irish cheeky twit of a husband says, I would never say such things about myself, what a nuisance and how simply dare he (in my best British voice)! But I love him really :)
References:
Conrad, R.-M., & Donaldson, J. A. (2011). Learning in an online environment. In Engaging the Online Learner (pp. 1–14). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (2010). Launching the online learning experience [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Sofware:
Voki http://www.voki.com
Glogster http://edu.glogster.com 
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