You're struggling to keep students engaged in your virtual classroom. What tools and services can help?

At my current company, our team has been using a tool called Mentimeter to keep employees engaged and it's working wonders. It has interactive polls, quizzes and badges! You can also try Kahoot for gamified quizzes, and breakout rooms on platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams for small group discussions. Also, try to incorporate interesting multimedia content into your presentations. Do encourage the students to participate through chat features. It's underestimated but works really well for introverts.

To enhance engagement in virtual classrooms, utilize interactive platforms like Zoom, LMS such as Moodle, and collaboration tools like Google Workspace. Introduce gamification with Kahoot! and leverage compelling multimedia content. Conduct live question sessions, polls, and virtual tutoring. Establish clear communication and promote collaborative projects. These diversified tools and approaches will keep students engaged and foster active participation in the virtual environment.

Creating an engaging online classroom can be difficult. Especially if you have asynchronous courses. It is imperative to create a clear structure with diverse multimedia content and interactive discussions. Instructors must work towards building the classroom community through virtual activities all while ensuring that their course content is accessible to all students.

Keeping students engaged in a virtual classroom can be challenging. You can try some of the methods below. - Video conferencing platforms You can Utilize interactive features on video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. Breakout rooms, chat functionalities, and polls can make sessions more engaging. - Interactive whiteboards Tools like Miro or Jamboard allow collaborative brainstorming, mind mapping, and drawing. - Interactive polling and quizzing Platforms like Kahoot!, Poll Everywhere, or Mentimeter enable you to create interactive quizzes and polls to assess understanding and keep students actively involved.

Reduce unnecessary screen time and prioritize human interaction. I have watched the takeover of screens and displacement of human interaction through my experience as both a tech support specialist for college faculty and administrators, and as a student in an online professional education program, and it has reached the point where feels like there is no human interaction left. The one thing that literally saved my law school career was my 1L/2L advisor calling me and leaving me a message asking me to call her back because she could see I was struggling and wanted to know what she could do to help. If I had received a "just in time message," I probably would have quit. We don't need more automation - we need more human connection.

I see these polling tools like eg. Mentimeter have already been mentioned. I think they always add a great sense of interaction in both online and hybrid mode. However also important to consider structure of delivery and that it’s just a matter of getting the right tool to get engagement. Is your course more like a long lecture? Do the students truly have an option to engage? Are there perhaps other things that could enable engagement eg. Ice breaker games etc? I think this should always be thought of - a good resource is oneHE

One feature that our LMS has that I greatly appreciate is what they call an intelligent agent. You can program it to reach out to students based on pre-set conditions with a message to encourage them. This helps students stay engaged by giving them "just in time" information and encouragement.

An effective LMS can reduce the amount of time spent struggling through content. Your students should not have to wonder around trying to find everything needed for there course inside of you operating plateform. Many years ago I used a online platform that was at best the most confusing operational system my students had ever experienced. Finding their assigned content took forever. Organization is the key to everything.

LMS is a powerful tool to save time and effort as both lessons and practice come in handy. They are more engaging than a teacher/instructor teaching online on his/her own. However, LMS loses efficacy if it is not a guided delivery of content. Despite LMS being designed to incorporate interactive learning and practice, and maybe following a particular sequence of topics, the instructor/teacher only can best decide the learning path of the individual, thereby adding or deleting certain topics or even incorporating some external content/quizzes/story telling/projects based on learn ability/learning pace/learning style of the individual. Therefore, incorporating LMS works best in a guided environment.

First, ask yourself, what do you want to measure and how would you like to do it? Does your method need a summative or a formative type of evaluation? You need your students or trainees to learn concepts and memorize them, or would you need them to remember ideas and put them in practice using different skills? In that way, you can orientate which evaluation kind suits best for you and your needs. Of course, normal evaluations could be assesments, trainings examination and so on, or you could lead your goal towards a project-based orientation, which is going to see how your people actually apply what they have learned, wether it is research, implementation, development of solutions, or so on. Think about it!

E-learning offers an intriguing possibility for teachers: the ability to provide learners with a diverse range of self-assessment activities. These activities enable them to independently gauge their comprehension of presented concepts, without their responses being documented. It's crucial to remember that learning doesn't solely occur through passive listening during lectures. True learning emerges from active engagement and practice. Self-assessment tasks facilitate this approach. This avenue grants learners the chance to swiftly obtain cognitive feedback on their grasp of studied material. As a learner, opting for courses incorporating self-assessment activities can significantly benefit your learning process!

Traditional assessment tools are effective to take a conceptual check and quizzes, polls or tests can work well for ‘honest’ learners. However, in this evolving world, incorporating creativity check in assessments is a fool proof method to avert plagiarism and cheating. As explained by Bloom’s taxonomy, “creating” is the pinnacle of knowledge or knowing any topic. Therefore, assessments in the form of video/slides creation involving the individual himself/herself, solving a problem in the present world or addressing a neighbourhood issue using the knowledge learnt will probably be the best ways not only to assess but also to put to action the knowledge learnt.

The virtual classroom must be more than a repository of academic material, in order for it to generate learning, activities must be carried out that lead to creation, and even better to co-creation in which peers listen, there is discussion and conclusions.

I have been teaching online for a bit more and than 20 years and I have always found that feedback given as soon as possible after the students give an answer ask a question or participate in anyway, is the best way to maintain their attention and interest active. The type of feedback tool is much less important than the dedication and feedback skills of the teacher.

On the LMS system my students use, we have a feedback form and a student community platform and I have found that we are able to get great feedback for improvement as well as a clear idea of the frequently asked questions.

I had the privilege of studying under professor Fossa-Andersen and I can attest to the high quality of his feedback for e-learning. I would also like to add a comment about a rarely mentioned area of e-learning, and it is the actual performance metrics that reveal user-system interaction and performance. If the platform allows for time tracking and time spent on specific screens and modules (as well as in tests), it can pinpoint bottlenecks and areas for improvement that would otherwise remain undetected. I operate an online e-learning platform in the Money Services Business industry.

A good way to collect and provide feedback is to organize personalized tutoring sessions in the form of discussions of about 15-30 mn with each learner, face-to-face or remotely, in order to check: 1) if the fundamental concepts have been understood 2) if the online course can be improved by complementary digital resources intended to facilitate the understanding of these concepts 3) if some learners encounter personal difficulties that hinder their learning. So that they express themselves freely, it must be made clear to learners that these tutoring sessions are not graded and do not intervene in their ranking. In this way, particularly useful information is also gathered to enrich an existing curriculum and make it more flexible.

Creating an engaging virtual classroom involves tools like Zoom or Google Meet for face-to-face connection, collaborative platforms such as Google Docs for teamwork, Learning Management Systems like Moodle for organization, and interactive whiteboards like Miro or Jamboard for creativity. Gamification with tools like Kahoot! adds fun, while VR experiences and engagement analytics tools provide immersive learning and valuable insights. Platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams facilitate continuous communication, and video creation tools like Flipgrid encourage creative expression. Social media integration extends the virtual classroom to create a supportive community. Integrating these tools enhances the online learning experience.

A great way to stimulate engagement and strengthen social connections during a teaching session is to ask learners to complete assignments in small groups and then present them to their peers, especially in the form of a short oral presentation and a small written report that will be taken into account for the final assessment. Ideally, you should schedule several discussion sessions with each group, face-to-face or remotely, at the end of the main stages of the work. They allow the teacher to discuss with each of the group members, answer their questions, help them organize themselves and show interest in the work done by the group, which is an important motivating factor.

I would agree very much with what Renaud said, social connections and collaboration on an exercise amongst the attendees would result in establishing focus and engagement to the task at hand. Everyone has provided some very valuable ideas here thank you everyone.

Throw in some personality and even some crazy ideas. Be spontaneous with your learners. Ask them crazy questions to keep them engaged and in a positive, listening mode. Ask the class for continual feedback during the session, not afterwards when it is too late.

Interesante artículo. En mi opinión para mantener la atención del alumnado hay dos herramientas fundamentales: el chat y el foro. Sin esas dos difícil. Un saludo