KlingShare#12 - Virtual Traditions: Designing Meaningful Online Events

KLINGSHARE:#12 KLINGCHAT - APRIL 23 & 28, 2020 VIRTUAL TRADITIONS: DESIGNING MEANINGFUL ONLINE EVENTS KlingShare:#12 shares five prototypes and additional questions and ideas generated during two KlingChats focused on virtual celebrations. We invite educators to take all or a portion of these ideas to help them plan celebrations in their communities. Share back and let us know what you ultimately designed by emailing us at klingenstein@tc.columbia.edu or tagging us on Twitter @KlingensteinCtr. DESIGN THINKING PROTOCOL AND MATERIALS

Participants in these KlingChat design thinking sessions used a three-step protocol lasting 42 minutes.

Step 1: Empathize - What specific need are your trying to meet? Who are you designing for? Why is it important? (8 minutes) Step 2: Imagine - How might we...? Generate many ideas quickly without filtering or editing them (10 minutes) Step 3: Make - Prototype/Map/Describe a meaningful event in full (24 minutes) Download a Google Slides presentation you can use to guide this exercise with your school team at http://tiny.cc/KCEventDesignProtocol ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS THAT EMERGED IN OUR DESIGN THINKING SESSIONS:

What do we value in our face-to-face celebrations that is worth creating a remote analogue to in this moment?

How can we use the frame we design to hear stories and to hear retellings of the ways that a student has made an impact on/made sense of their time in a school community?

How are gatherings less bounded by virtue of the internet’s reach?

How might we think about equity and access to these celebrations?

How might we honor faculty who are retiring?

How might we include the whole community?

How might we listen to our students and their ideas in this moment?

How can we seize this as an opportunity to launch something new?

How might our parents function as “co-conspirators” in the event? How can they be a part of the surprises that happen during the event?

How might we blend live and pre-recorded portions to enjoy during a celebration?

How might we make significant school spaces present during the event? Perhaps with a filmed “on location” effect or a digitally-created backdrop that everyone recognizes?

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PROTOTYPE #1: GRADUATION IN A BOX Add an element of surprise and individual care to your virtual graduation ceremony!

Send your graduates a care package.

Ideas of items to include: mortarboard/ graduation cap, gown, lei, school swag, artifact unique to the student, confetti poppers (great on screen!); graduation program and instructions; notes from advisors, teachers, coaches, and younger students; actual or standin diplomas. Highlight the importance we are all placing right now on being able to hold something tangible.

Other activities and ideas to enhance your graduation in a box: Create a possible scavenger hunt to find the link to the ceremony (puzzles, things students would only know that affirms their connection, funny and current that follows the theme).

Students can design their own unique background whether virtual or crafted and projected.

The box can also reflect that the student is not only recognized but known. Each box can contain a note for each student from teachers and maybe other students.

A family member hands the student their diploma during a set time in the program.

Family takes a photo of the moment and shares back.

Students record themselves dancing in their cap and gowns and the clips are made into a video to show at the ceremony.

Families send in baby pictures and school sets up a “Guess who is the baby?” game or a side-by-side “Then and Now” photos slide show. For a PreK onward program, a slide show of students as they grow up at the school would be a nice touch.

In the box: provide a prompt that leads each student to write a Class Poem. Each person says a line during the event.

Create an element of surprise by sending one package to students and one to parents.

Some schools have students walk through a line of the faculty or through a special portal, tunnel, or gate at the school to signify the students’ end and new beginning.

How might each student walk through their own personal gates or portal at home?

What does such a gesture mean to the students and what might it mean to “cross over” at home? What artifact could they share from that moment?

Students create their own 36”x 24” background that is a real, material artifact and that they bring to the school eventually for an in-person celebration of their class when possible.

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PROTOTYPE #2: OUR TIME TOGETHER APART: A MULTIMEDIA TIME CAPSULE This prototype can be used to create a graduation artifact or to mark the end of the year for everyone in the community or even each class at each grade level. It has the capacity to be a multi-generational activity.

This springtime virtual event invites our community to design and populate a time capsule of the year. The time capsule could include stories, songs, recognitions, artifacts, and more. We’ll unpack it and “handle” the items when we are able to be together.

Ideas for content and design of the time capsule: Student and faculty & staff teams engage and have ownership of various stages of the process: design container, collecting/prepping, selection/assignment, etc.

Create a “drop box” on school grounds where students will deliver their memory objects for the capsule.

Create a physical box of objects at school to open up as a community when you return.

Select theme song and curate playlists.

Record stories, songs, awards, images, and speeches. For greater accessibility, print transcripts of recordings.

Include recognitions and notes of gratitude.

Collect artifacts of this COVID-19 moment from school and home.

Video the collection of physical items and share reasons why each object was chosen.

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PROTOTYPE #3: WHOLE COMMUNITY END-OF-YEAR MOMENTS This prototype recognizes that, while students who are graduating are in need of celebration and moments of joy, so too are the members of the rest of the community. What follows is a list of spring events that can, hopefully, bring joy and fun to your remote end-of-school experience.

Graduating or moving up students respond to six questions on video to post on social media or the school’s “senior pages.”. Examples of questions: (1) What year did you start at this school?

(2) What are the top three memorable programs or activities you participated in at the school?

(3) What is your favorite memory while a student here?

(4) What did you learn here that you want to spend more time learning on your own or at your next school?

(5) What is your proudest achievement or moment from your time here?

(6) What is a piece of advice you would like to pass on to current students?

Prerecord student messages to their peers (30 seconds - 1 minutes each).

Host a Field Day - National Virtual Field Day (through SHAPE, for instance).

Students can create their own animated avatars (i.e. via Roblox or Minecraft).

Faculty and staff write letters to a student.

Create a school-wide Kahoot! game. Incorporate asking teachers fun questions and then having questions about the school history, etc. Fun for students to put together.

Curate dances/musical pieces/artwork that represents community.

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PROTOTYPE #4: THE FOUR-PRONG GRADUATION EXPERIENCE This prototype envisions a four-part process that includes both online and offline/tangible components and engages families and community members.

Part 1: The Lead Up Awards ceremonies/senior dinners/baccalaureate Don’t tire everyone out with the lead-up so that you lose them for the graduation.

Introduce something tangible, something everyone can contribute to that is “revealed” on graduation day as a community surprise.

Part 2: The On-Screen Every student builds 30 seconds of their own message to the community rather than having words said about them.

Give students ownership of the moment and a way to break from previous traditions to start a new one.

Provide a shared time to watch it as a group Expand and contract the event in different ways. For instance, everyone is together on screen for the student video and then moves to advisory groups for smaller, focused group moment during the larger event.

Pre-record the program, where possible, for those families who cannot be in attendance. The recording may also be shared ahead of a “ceremony” of sorts.

Include leadership/student speakers.

Consider having an emcee for the event to increase engagement. Is there a vivacious personality or well-know person in your community who could do this?

Think outside the box: Can a 4th grader serve as emcee?

Mix live and pre-recorded events.

Part 3: The Off-Screen A surprise for the community Perhaps reveal a final product to which each member contributed a part.

How might we have a different surprise for each student? Can they open the surprise on screen for a synchronous ceremony as they would a diploma?

Deliver something to grandparents so that they might be included.

Part 4: The After Schedule a great alumni-building opportunity where graduates reconvene for a ceremony the next year.

Ask teachers to write letters, providing a meaningful, personalized, and tangible keepsake for each student.

Use a live Padlet during the ceremony to preserve the event for later.

Students could share emails or notes with one another.

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PROTOTYPE #5: "A QUARANTINE CAROL" CELEBRATION This celebration incorporates the entire school community and plays off of the past, present, future framing structure of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It also wonders, “How might a school celebration have public and private elements?” This whole event can be a very personal event in a way that it would not have been “traditionally” possible.

Public Event: Live musical performance greets everyone as they arrive to the virtual event. Is there a musical group or singer in your community who can provide this programming? Have the event begin at a set time.

Past - Alumni share their experience or how the school has impacted them.

Present - Graduates talk about their experience.

Future - Retiring faculty speak about what they are taking with them.

Private Event: On an online platform, such as Zoom, curate a space that is specific to each child.

Past - A message from a teacher the student had during a previous school year.

Perhaps the student could name a teacher who influenced them.

Present - Reflections from parents and peers Future - "Buddy" from a lower grade or an alum writes to the graduate.

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BONUS: RAPID PROTOTYPE IDEAS FOR COMMUNITY RALLY POINTS, RECOGNITIONS, CELEBRATIONS & COMMUNITY EVENTS Think about this: How might these ideas work for the students in your community? For the adults in your community? Every aspect of your community needs such moments of celebration and maintenance - especially now.

Have graduating students produce vlogs that would play at school when we return.

Curate a digital exhibit of student artwork and show it live when we return.

Create a work of art collaboratively as a community.

Rent a screen and host a drive-in movie. The same setup could be used for graduation or other culminating celebrations.

Record and share news interviews: interview a senior and then share their reflections with the community.

Host an online dance party via Google Meet or Zoom with a DJ. Have students write notes of appreciation to a teacher or staff member of choice.

They can email the person directly or mail their notes to school.

Create a school-wide Kahoot! game. It could be student created and include teacher trivia and school history.

Collect messages from parents, alumni, and community members by having them post notes, videos, and photos to a "group card" at kudoboard.com. Use #[school name]2020 as a hashtag.

Host a T-shirt logo design competition, order T-shirts with the winning logo, and send them to students.

Create scavenger hunts via GooseChase.com in place of class trips or picnics.

Assemble photos submitted by students, faculty, and families into a slideshow. Host a simultaneous viewing via Vidigami.com (or similar tool) or as a slide "installation."

Create breakout rooms for graduation (hosted table).

Host Alumnae/Alumni Happy Hours.

Issue a weekly Lego challenge for families.

KlingShare:#12 | Klingenstein Center, Teachers College, Columbia University | klingensteincenter.org