At the start of my online sessions with students I draw upon the “chat show” format from TV or those news magazine programmes.
I always start with In the News and, having some a little bit of research before the session), I find some relevant and hopefully fascinating news stories online that dovetail nicely with the content of the session. We open up for a bit of comment and reaction, keeping it all very informal.
An example of a In the News Slide…
I usually have about 5 news items and we open up for chat around the news stories. Over time you can set a task for students (individually or in twos or threes) to bring their own news items to share.
Here’s the link to this news story…