TechThursday: Climer Cards

A different type of ice-breaker for online discussion.

I was recently in a training where the facilitator used Climer Cards to get a discussion started about how participants felt about their current writing/research practices. I thought it was a unique way to structure an ice-breaker activity, and wanted to share the process. Here’s what the version we used looked like:

Participants had a list of words to pick from, and then a space to elaborate underneath why they were feeling “strong” or “focused” about their writing.

Background: Climer cards started as a physical desk of cards with pictures “designed to evoke metaphors and imagination” and are intended to be used in “team building activities, enhancing conversations, and generating creative ideas.”

The website has options to set up word- or picture-based cards for participants to react with - the video below explains in-depth the different options.

Past Tech Thursdays

• Student engagement: Digital exit tickets / Interactive quizzing / Online question management for classes & presentations / Wheel of Names (random name generator) / Providing audio feedback

• Health: Two programs to reduce eyestrain

• Zoom: Screen share in Zoom / How to Zoom in in Zoom

• Research: Managing references / Find free versions of articles / Text Capture Apps

• Using images: Remove distracting backgrounds from photos / Using screenshots

• Google Docs: “Make a copy” function in Google Drive / Working in shared Google docs / Collaborating in Google Slides / Turn Google Forms into a formatted document

• Canvas: Canvas “What-if” grades

• Productivity: Keyboard shortcuts / Text Expanders / Mailbird email program / Voice-to-text options / Custom URLs & QR codes / DropBox Paper for collaboration