Have fun in Zoom sessions

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Caution.JPG REVISION IN PROGRESS: This article contains useful information, but is being revised to reflect recent updates. Direct questions to TLT (tlt@winona.edu).

Learning ways to have fun in Zoom sessions can break the ice, encourage interaction, engage attendees, improve mood, and perhaps even benefit overall mental health. Integrating fun and play into your Zoom sessions can break the monotony of some professional or class meetings and help refocus your attendees. Organizing Zoom sessions for the exclusive purpose of playing and having fun can help compensate for being apart physically.

Why play in Zoom?

The human need for play and fun is well-documented and the benefits extend far beyond mere entertainment and momentary enjoyment. Play can be an important channel for social learning and close relationship formation. When we are playing, laughing, joking, and having fun with each other, we often set aside the more serious roles and identities associated with our adult selves and we interact with others on a more personal level, perhaps revealing things about ourselves that help others get to know us better. Increased interpersonal intimacy in our social relationships can have many lasting psychological and organizational benefits. In professional settings, play can help resolve conflicts, increase perspective-taking and cultural sensitivity, and build social identity and group cohesion. While people have been playing together online for decades, much of that social interaction has been through voice and text messaging only. The relatively recent explosion of accessible, high-quality video conferencing services has exposed many people to the experience of seeing one another as they interact online and that opens some interesting possibilities for fun and play.

Simple Zoom fun

All of these activities can be accomplished using Zoom features exclusively, without introducing another application that needs to be configured and mastered. This does not include familiar applications that you use every day and often share through Zoom (e.g., PowerPoint, web browsers). They are organized based on the type of meeting: a class or work meeting in which you want to spend a fraction of your time playing, or a meeting devoted to fun exclusively.

Fun meeting moments

  • Dance Break! - Use the share computer audio feature to play some intro or outro music, play a quick game of "Name That Tune," or stop your meeting for a 1-minute karaoke or dance break.
  • What Year Was This? - Use the share screen feature to share a silly photo. Use the polls feature to ask people to guess the year it was taken.
  • Haiku Corner - Give people a few minutes to write a haiku about the meeting, how they are feeling, or how their week is going, and then ask them to recite it for the group.
  • Home Scavenger Hunt - Ask people to find a small object in their homes that that meets a certain criterion (e.g., their favorite coffee mug, the oldest item in their refrigerator). Have them use the camera in Zoom to show it to the group.
  • Harrumph Harrumph - Ask everyone to open their mics and start muttering unintelligibly in dismay, agreement, or disagreement for a few seconds. Not too loud or you will get feedback!
  • Share a Pic - Ask people to find a picture on their phone that meets a certain criterion (e.g., an act of kindness, fun in the snow) and hold it up to the camera to share it with others.
  • Movie Poster - Ask people to set as their background an image related to a movie that meets a certain criterion (e.g., last movie watched, movie that captures how they are feeling at the moment). Have the group guess the name of the movie.
  • Would You Rather - Use the poll feature or reactions to present people with a pair of crazy choices. Ask them to pick one. After the votes are tallied, discuss the pros and cons of each choice.
  • Sad Trombone - Play sound effects using the share computer audio feature at opportune times during sessions.
  • Show-and-Tell - Ask a person to show something interesting to the group.

Meetings devoted to fun

  • Board Game Night - Pick a favorite board game and play it together online. If everyone has the game, they can use the pieces to play. Games based on dice rolls (e.g., Yahtzee) are good candidates for this activity. Players can tip their cameras to show their rolls. Other games (e.g., Sorry, Candyland) might require one person to manage and display the game board (e.g., using their phone positioned above the board).
  • Hobby Lobby - Pick a fun activity that is relatively easy to capture on camera (e.g., baking cookies, preparing chili, doing yoga, painting, knitting). You could all be engaged in the same activity (e.g., baking chocolate chip cookies) or just working in the same genre (e.g., baking your favorite kind of cookies). Position your device such that you are capturing yourself on camera as you engage in that activity. Assuming you are within 5-10" of the front of your device, your mic should pick up your voice clearly.
  • Chopped - A variation of Hobby Lobby, ask people to show you their refrigerators and pantries. The group picks four ingredients and each person has 30 minutes to make something from those ingredients which they must eat. The group can judge the dishes on appearance.
  • Join the Club - Form a book, movie, or some other club. Share questions related to the book or movie and then convene in Zoom to discuss them.
  • Variety Show - Ask everyone to come to the session with something to perform or share. It could be a painting, a song, a poem, or something they made. You might decide on a theme or genre ahead of time. Judge the performances if you wish.
  • Podcast - Turn your session into a podcast, interview, or "Tonight Show" format, Pick a theme, invite your friends and co-workers as "guests" and assign an emcee to host the event.
  • The Great Debate - Pick a silly proposition to debate (e.g., Ant-Man is the most powerful Avenger). Pick two debaters and ask them to bring a three-slide PowerPoint to present while making their argument. Ask the others to vote before and after the debate to see who is more persuasive. Repeat with another two debaters and another proposition.
  • Trivia Night - Use one of the many online trivia question sites or the Trivial Pursuit board came to host a game of trivia, in groups or one-on-one. Add an "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" or thematic twist if you wish.

Zoom plus other applications

To accomplish these activities, you and/or your meeting attendees will need to use another application in addition to Zoom. Although this will make things a bit more challenging initially, managing these activities should become easier with experience. Although all of these activities allow people to run both Zoom and the second application on the same device, some may be easier to do if a second mobile device (e.g., phone, tablet) is used to run the second application, while a computer is used to run Zoom.

  • You Don't Know Me - Create a set of flashcards in Quizlet and change the edit settings so that all your attendees can collaborate. Have each person enter a little known fact about themselves and then enter their name on the other side of the card. Depending on how much time you have, each person could complete more than one card. Shuffle and play! (Mashable, APR 2020)
  • Where in the World Is? - Use Google Earth and the Share Screen function in Zoom to take people on a virtual vacation. This could be a travelog of a place you have been or a preview of a place you want to go.
  • Karaoke Party - Although you have the ability to stream YouTube karaoke videos through Zoom directly, they can get out of synch for some people as their local bandwidth fluctuates. To resolve this, you can use another app designed to help everyone keep what they are watching in synch with one another, such as Watch2Gether.
  • Virtual Museum Tour - Use the list of virtual museums from Google Arts and Culture and screen sharing in Zoom to walk through a museum together and discuss the work.
  • Kahoot Live Games - Use Kahoot to host games using your web browser. Share your screen as the Kahoot host so people can see the game results. Make sure to enable system sounds if you want people to hear the audio portion of the Kahoot game. Provide people with the link to the Kahoot game and ask them to respond using their browser on their laptop or mobile device.
  • Jackbox Games - Purchase a "party pack" that has the game you want. While you share your

Attend an online event together

Many businesses have moved their services and events online during the pandemic and most are using Zoom to deliver them. Check your local listings for virtual events near you to support local businesses. Extend your search worldwide to find special events for your group. Here are a few examples:

Your digital toybox

Zoom skills for fun masters

  • How to play music in a Zoom session
  • How to join your Zoom session on your phone or tablet
  • How to manage breakout rooms
  • How to share your screen
  • How to optimize Zoom for sharing videos
  • How to pin and unpin video windows
  • How to manage polls
  • How to use reactions
  • How to display your Zoom session on your television

Pro tips

  • Don't break copyright law! There are legal limits to sharing copyrighted material (e.g., songs, images, poems) in Zoom sessions, particularly if you are making a copy of that work (e.g., by recording the Zoom session). Be careful and ask TLT (tlt@winona.edu) or your Library Liason if you have any questions.
  • Give people choices. Allow people to opt-out of planned activities or participate in other ways. Some may not want to open up their cameras, sing, or speak. Make sure everyone in the group understands that it's fine to participate in whatever way is most comfortable. Remember, some people experience levels of social anxiety that can be debilitating and disruptive for them. Some may be embarrassed to reveal themselves or their surroundings to others. Some worry about being captured (e.g., recording, screenshot) doing things that might be used to harass, humiliate, or embarrass them later.
  • Establish a safe space. As always, it's essential that everyone in your group feels welcomed, included, respected, and free from harassment or mistreatment. People say and do things in online meetings that they might avoid in-person because they feel more detached, deindividuated, and anonymous. In some cases, this might be a good thing, especially for people who experience social anxiety. In other cases, it might lead to an ugly situation. Get out in front of it by communicating with your group in advance and making the interpersonal ground rules clear.
  • Set an agenda and assign an emcee. Although you would think that people would just find things to talk about and move from topic to topic easily when they are gathering in Zoom socially, that's often difficult in virtual meetings because they lack the nonverbal cues available in in-person meetings. They also often prevent people from joining and leaving conversations smoothly, as they would when wandering from group to group at a party. Your group will appreciate someone who keeps things on track and moving along.

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External links

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