A few years ago, I shared some of my favorite end-of-year technology class ideas on my blog, and it’s one of the most read posts that I have, here’s a link, click here to read it. This year, I wanted to share a completely fresh list with my most recent favorites – different activities, different vibe, same goal: keeping students engaged during those chaotic last days before summer break officially begins, and having fun. And let’s be honest… by that point, nobody wants long explanations, heavy projects, or complicated prep. I want to sip my iced latte under the sun with a good book, but that has to wait another week or two.
If you and your students are already mentally at the beach like me (I’ve got a planned Greece trip in July and I literally can NOT wait!!!), these ideas might save your sanity a little. Thank me later with a comment below the post 🙂
Technology trivia tournament (or simply put – a quiz)
Split the class into teams and run a fun trivia game. You can find something already done at Kahoot’s website for example, or create questions of your own.
Questions can be about:
- famous video games
- computer history
- logos
- internet safety
- coding vocabulary
- emojis
- memes
- “guess the app from the icon”
You can make it competitive or just silly. You can use questions that revise what you have taught during the school year, or just make it fun and relatable to their lives (like guessing emojis). One of my favorite things to do is include intentionally ridiculous fake answers just to hear the students argue over them.
If you don’t have the time to create the quiz yourself (or to look through the gigantic Kahoot catalog), you can check out 30 questions that I came up with from the following topics:
- file extensions
- cyberbullying
- Microsoft Word
- Input and Output devices
- simple logic (AND, OR)
Here’s a link to the downloadable interactive quiz-resource: IT quiz about extensions cyberbullying Word input output devices AND OR logic. The questions are simple and basic, suitable for younger students. I use it with my 9 and 10 year olds mostly. The presentation, as I said, is interactive – you click on the little alien helper on each slide and it will color the correct answer in green and all of the others in red.
Build the worst website ever
Instead of making students create a good website… challenge them to make the most terrible one possible. For the older and more tech-savvy students you can use pure HTML and CSS, with a little use of Google (not AI!) and for the younger students you can use a chatbot like chatGPT and make them vibe-code the whole thing. If you don’t know what vibe coding is, click here to read a blog post where I explain everything. A third option is making that website’s front page with a drawing tool or software like MS Paint. Some of the “rules” of the activity could be:
- Tiny unreadable fonts
- Terrible color combinations
- 100 blinking GIFs a page
- Music autoplay
- Buttons that make no sense or do nothing
My students LOVE this because they get to break all the design rules I taught them on purpose. And without knowing, by breaking those, they are actually learning them (and even a bit more). If you want to practice some simple design rules with a fun technology activity (perfect for the end of the school year) you can see this resource – Visual Concept Design with a Drawing Tool | Technology class | Business project. And below is a hilariously bad (made on purpose, of course) website example I found using Google Images:
“Guess the Technology” game
Bring random old tech items or show pictures on the board (download them from Google Images), examples:
- floppy disks
- MP3 players
- old phones
- DVD players
- wired mice with balls inside
- fax machines
- records of Madonna 🙂
Students have to guess what those objects are and how they were used. This activity becomes unintentionally hilarious every single time. Watching students try to explain a floppy disk is one of the highlights of my May and June every year, honestly 🙂
If you don’t have the time to prepare such an activity, I have prepared one for you (it’s the one I use with my own students and I uploaded it to TpT). This is a link where you can check it out and see for yourself if it fits your individual needs – Guess the Tech | Technology History Then and Now | Interactive Quiz. What is included in the resource:
- Interactive slide presentation with click-to-reveal answers (in a PPSX – powerpoint slide show format, easily opened by MS PowerPoint and Google Slides)
- 20 old-school technology devices for students to identify
- Optional research extension activity after the main one
Devices included in the quiz (you can use this list yourself, even if you don’t decide to use my resource):
- Record Player / Gramophone
- Floppy Disk
- VHS Tape
- Compact Cassette
- Walkman
- Portable CD Player
- Pager
- Fax Machine
- CRT Monitor
- Trackball Mouse
- Typewriter
- BlackBerry Phone
- iPod
- Computer Fan
- Game Boy Color
- Tamagotchi
- GPS Device
- Rotary Dial Phone
- Punched Card
- Antique Radio
“Teach the Teacher” presentation activity
Students LOVE becoming the expert for a day. Just use Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides or some other presentation making software to complete this idea. Ask the students: “What’s one app, game, website, or technology tool you think I should know about?”, and then they make a presentation about it that can be presented in 2-3 minutes afterwards. They could even present in front of the whole class.
You end up “learning” about:
- bizarre games (oh, I’ve seen so many with this activity!)
- viral apps and tools
- trending websites
- things you probably wish you never learned 😅
But it gives students ownership and makes the class feel more relaxed and collaborative.
The last days of school are always chaotic, loud, and exhausting, but they can also end up being some of the most memorable classes of the entire year. Honestly, students usually remember these fun relaxed activities way more than the perfectly structured lesson I spent 4 hours preparing back in October.
Sometimes surviving the final week with my sanity intact is the real learning objective that I have in the last 2 weeks of May. I hope this post was helpful to you and that you have a wonderful, very relaxing summer. See you in August!
Technology Realm Resources 