woman placing sticky notes on wall for small group

Students benefit from studying together. Since we experienced being socially distanced, online study groups can be a convenient alternative to meeting face-to-face with classmates and other students.

You can form a study group with students in your class through Canvas: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-create-a-group-as-a-student/ta-p/280

You can also use apps like Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, or FaceTime.

If you'd like to form a study group with students outside your class, you might check out these resources for your meetings:

gather.town: https://gather.town/ This tool allows you to create your own space and host events, so you can create your own course lounge if you wanted to do something like that--or your students could do that, too

Marco Polo: https://www.marcopolo.me/ Another tool where students can create videos like Snapchat, etc... and easily share.

Virbella Open Campus: https://opencampus.virbela.com/register?redirect=download This tool can be used in virtual reality, or from a laptop or mobile device. It has an open college campus where you are greeted by a person (their avatar) who can answer questions. You select your own character, and can direct your character to go anywhere on a college campus and talk to others. It's got a fun video game feel to it, and there are indoor and outdoor spaces to use. Your name displays above your avatar so you can find people easily. You will have to download it to your device for use and log in--took me about five minutes:) Notice the Halloween decorations!

! Tracy Russo's avatar in the program Virbella