Online Conversation Starters:

This online conversation starter activity has been recently used for a virtual exchange between students in the U.S. and China. The international student team was embarking on a collaborative project to apply User Experience (UX) principles to the design of cell phone apps. The U.S. students were initially surprised by the response they got to a question about “How does your family take a vacation?”. The U.S. students had anticipated that their Chinese counterparts would have taken week-long beach vacations similar to what many families do in the U.S. take during Spring Break. Instead, the U.S. students learned that many of the Chinese students visited with their families as part of the Chinese New Year and the vacation did not necessarily involve travel to a beach-like destination. This informal conversation helped pave the way for future conversations on their shared project.

- Dr. W. Hutzel, Purdue Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University

I utilized this tool for my first class in which students hadn't yet gotten to know eachother.  This was a wonderful tool to get them talking-- we formatted it a bit like speed dating, and selected 5 questions, each to be discussed with a new chat buddy.  The questions were great:  some were quirky, some personal, and all required some thought.  I firmly believe this set a tone for the class of camaraderie and curiosity, which the students maintained throughout the semester and we had a wonderful experience!