Peer Review

Online Activity Breaks

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Oct 24, 2021 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

An ongoing series of activity breaks for online courses intended to encourage a healthy balance between screen time and time being present in the real world. This series was created in an attempt to encourage offline breaks in students' online learning, and to model and instill healthy online practices by giving students permission to take a break from the computer and get up to stretch, dance, meditate, and practice mindfulness.

Type of Material:

Learning Object Repository

Recommended Uses:

This blog is best used as reminders for taking activity breaks whether as a teacher or a student.

Technical Requirements:

Basic computing skills and Internet access, ability to view videos.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Provides user with activity ideas for screentime breaks.

The author states "After dealing with a concussion in my own online studies, and spending some time researching healthy screen-time / real world balance in one of my Master’s courses, I’ve decided to add some reminders for activity breaks into our course."

Target Student Population:

Middle School, High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Basic computing skills and Internet access with the ability to watch YouTube videos.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

Taking activity breaks is a valid concept and is backed by research. According to the author, she loves teaching online and studying online, "however, like with most things in life there are ups and downs to teaching and learning online. One area that I have been questioning for sometime now, is finding a healthy balance between screentime and time being present in the real world. Exploring that balance was the focus of my research in Master of Educational Technology Course ETEC 500. As a result, she put reminders into the class she teaches for students to take a break from the computer and get up to stretch, dance, meditate …etc.

The site provides a variety of ideas that can be used for schools, workplaces, or home to alleviate the added stress from too much time spent viewing digital materials.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Each blog entry includes an activity with an overview, a challenge to act, an example (or more than one example), an explantion of how to, and a request for more examples or ideas for other activity breaks.

The author shares these Activity Breaks and states you may "Feel free to copy and modify these for your own online courses, if so desired."

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

Although the link to the Activities Blog starts on Activity 5, the first 4 activities are also listed with full supporting resources. The pages are quick reads and the site is easy to navigate. Teachers who want to add an activity to their online course could link directly to a particular activity or allow students to choose from the 5 shown. Or the activities could be remixed and placed on any website or in an LMS.

Easy to navigate through the various segments.

Concerns:

One video link was unavailable at time of this review.

If the activities are used as is, students would need an explanation as to why the overviews are directed to students in a digital media class.

Other Issues and Comments:: Be sure to screen videos prior to sharing with younger students!
Creative Commons: