Shining a light on Lumio

Over the past year and a half, many instructors have moved to remote or online learning. We've been engaging our students through Zoom and Teams, but today we wanted to share a new favorite edtech tool – Lumio.

Move over Nearpod and Peardeck – there is a new kid on the block, and it's Lumio! Lumio allows you to teach your students through interactive slides, games, polls, and questions. We were surprised by what Lumio offered to adult learners. For starters, it contains a library full of templates you can customize for your own needs, saving your teacher time and sanity!

The first step is to create a free account. You can then search for content based on keywords, grades, or subjects. Then choose standards or resources to review. There are so many interactive activities to choose. You can show material on the interactive whiteboard. But what if you wanted all students to interact with the material? Lumio is the perfect tool for that.

Search for content based on keywords or subjects, browse through collections of material, like the "Emotional Literacy" collection, and even limit the scope to post-secondary materials.

Once you have an account, let's talk about content creation. All you need to do is input the content. You can also click on the magic wand on the slide to make it a handout for students to complete individually. You can create a collaboration board for the whole class to use. There are so many options to engage your students with before a lesson. Don't want to start from scratch or already have a presentation you want to use? You can upload a presentation that you already have and make it interactive.

Well, let's talk about fun and engaging features.

• Add Youtube videos to your lessons.

• Explore Desmos–a graphing calculator tool.
  

• Use response prompts. Response prompts can take the form of multiple-choice, true/false, check box answers, polls, or short answer responses. Our favorite was the shout-out option, where you can have students create a word cloud and the most popular words appear in larger font sizes. We did this activity with the prompt, "What does engaging students in class look like?" Students responded with one-word answers, but they could put up to three different responses. Students could then call out a few words to share in the large group.

• Create a game! Students loved the monster quiz game. They worked in groups to answer multiple-choice and true and false questions. Their monster avatar would burst out of its egg as they got the answers correct. It was fun to see them answer questions and work together. Several other activities are available, such as a game show, matching label reveals, and sorting activities.
  

• Encourage reflection. Our preference is a six-word summary or a one-minute essay. Students can type, draw, and insert images related to the topic. This activity is a great way to see what they know about a topic.

Provide students with a code to join the class once they have created an activity. Once you've selected a mode, you can start the lesson with your students. You can teach students through an engaging lesson, whether in person or remotely.

But what about the data? Collecting information is easy by downloading an Excel sheet. You can click on specific student responses and see what they submitted.

Create content that engages students in large groups, small groups, and individual instruction. There are so many ways to support your learners. Try it! Sign up for a free Lumio account here.

*Flourishing Academic blog originally posted this content.