A few weeks ago, I was looking for a creative way to engage small groups of students in the essentials of building and maintaining a Professional Online Profile, as part of an employability and careers event for up to 300 Single and Joint Honours History students.

The event was planned in a world cafe style with timed slots at each table and students changing tables at the sound of the 15 minute bell.

After receiving some inspiration from Sue Beckingham’s snakes and ladders approach (thanks Sue!),  I decided on Bingo…… well, PoP (Professional Online Profile) Bingo to be exact. I thought this was a perfect and light-hearted way to discuss serious aspects of  online profiles and making sure the students were presenting the right image online.

I devised 8 questions with a variety of answers ranging from correct to very silly but with enough similarity to cause doubt and get students thinking.
IMG_4227_fullresArmed with dabbers, prizes and laminated answer cards, each 15 minute session was split with 5 minutes for Bingo and 10 minutes for going through the answers and expanding on any areas the student’s needed help with or advice about.  The last task was to ask students to make a pledge to do one thing on their online profile following the session.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, changing profile pictures came top of the pledges.
This was a simple activity with high impact and quite a lot of fun!
If you feel like a spot of PoP Bingo – all the word document templates are here and are ready to use – or just add your own questions.

PoP Bingo!
Bingo Question Sheet

Bingo – Make A Pledge

PoP Bingo! Logo has the creative commons attribution CC-BY-SA Remixable Thinkery by @visualthinkery is licenced under CC-BY-SA.

Rachel Challen
Principal Lecturer (Learning, Teaching and Staff Development Manager)
Athena SWAN Champion
Ext: 83895 rachel.challen@ntu.ac.uk
MAE011(Clifton) DICe S04 (City)