Ways to Adapt Face-to-Face Activities
Anonymous questions 
Synchronous Platforms 
The good news is that if your video platform doesn’t include a process by which participants can ask anonymous questions, there are a lethora of other options available to you. Google Forms, for example, can gather fully anonymous questions that you can see in real-time.
Asynchronous Platforms 
The good news is that if your learning management system doesn’t offer a process bywhich participants can ask anonymous questions (because most of them don’t), there are a plethora of other options available to you. Google Forms is a great structure that participants can use whenever they are engaging.
Social Media 
This is so easy to do on social media! The possibility of anonymous inter- action is often baked into the social media experience. The only caveat is that followers who have used their real names may want another way to offer an anonymous question, like through a google form.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts 
Answering every single question that’s asked can be daunting, particularly when participants have time to sit and think about what they want to ask (or even text a friend to see what they should ask!). Consider how long it may take you to answer every anonymous question as a factor in how often you invite participants to ask them. If you invite anonymous questions, but don’t answer them (or at least address why you aren’t answering them), participants may lose trust in the online CSE process.
Brainstorming 
Synchronous Platforms
Digital whiteboards, shared Google Docs, or even just screen sharing a word processing document all work to fill this need. Many video conferencing platforms have internal whiteboards and more robust internet programs (like Mural and Miro) also exist.
Asynchronous Platforms
A Google Doc works really well for asynchronous brainstorming. Everyone can access it and anyone can change or add things.
Social Media
Finding ways for followers to engage in conversations and build on each other’s ideas can happen through comments on or reactions to organizational posts or using a broader approach like creating a brainstorm- or topic-specific hashtag.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
Brainstorming within a sexuality context always requires immediate feedback and interaction with ideas, as they are suggested. All young people know examples of language and ideas that are harmful and hurtful and these surface regularly during brainstorming sessions. It is the facilitator’s job to quickly address them rather than to let them sit as part of the visual brainstorming process. However, this is substantially more difficult to do if participants are adding their own ideas. If you are allowing participants to add their own ideas to a brainstorm, either synchronously or asynchronously, be sure to address the group rules and dynamics prior to opening the brainstorm, including not overwriting other people’s contributions, and address problematic contributions as quickly as possible.
Condom Demonstrations 
Synchronous Platforms
This is fairly easy to do, because you can present the demonstration via video rather than doing it in person. What is more complex is having the participants practice putting a condom on a penis model. Depending on your resources, you might be able to include condoms and a cucumber as part of a class supply list or mail each participant a package of condoms and have them bring a cucumber to class to practice with. Make sure that you mention that the cucumber is a standin for a penis model and that putting a condom on a penis is what they should do to protect against pregnancy or disease transmission.
Asynchronous Platforms
This is fairly easy to do, because you can either record yourself putting a condom on a penis model or link to a YouTube video of someone else putting a condom on a penis model. Recording yourself, when possible, is better because it builds connections between you and your participants that may otherwise feel missing in an asychronous classroom. What is more complex is having participants practice putting a condom on a penis model. If your participants’ technology and resources are sufficient, you can have them record themselves putting a condom on a cucumber and share the video with you. Make sure that you mention that the cucumber is a stand-in for a penis model and that putting a condom on a penis is what they should do to protect against pregnancy or disease transmission.
Social Media
These are already readily available online in both video and image format. Linking to one is an easy way to provide the information to followers. Making an organizational-specific version allows you to brand it, make sure that the information is accurate, and make connections with your other content.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
It is useful to remember that putting a condom on is a relatively simple pro- cedure when compared to having a conversation with a partner or a potential partner about contraceptives and STI prevention methods. It is critical for STI and pregnancy prevention activities to include a focus on how to hold these conversations through role play or other activities.
Creative expressions (writing or drawing) 
Synchronous Platforms
If participants are assigned to prepare a written or drawn expression prior to class, they can take a picture of it and either send it to the facilitator or add it to a shared document (like Google Slides). The facilitator can show the contributions or a subset of them to display via a slide show during class or he participants can look over the shared document that they directly contributed to. If participants create their expressions during class, they can turn on their cameras to share visuals or they can turn on their microphones to read aloud what they wrote.
Asynchronous Platforms
Participants can easily share written words and digital pictures that they take of their creations via discussion boards or shared documents (like Google Slides). You can allow participants to respond to others’ posts or not, depending on the goal of the assignments.
Social Media
Invite followers to share their creative expressions through their own accounts using a specific hashtag or through direct message with your organizational account for you to share out anonymously (with the same hashtag!).
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
Previewing participant-created content prior to sharing it with all the partici- pants allows the facilitator to preview the content to attend to anything that is potentially problematic before it is distributed to all of the participants.
Games and other physical activities 
Synchronous Platforms
Translating games/physical activities that were designed for a F2F experience into a synchronous, online experience can be very difficult (like going to a store to buy condoms), easy (like having small groups brainstorm synonyms for sexuality related words in breakout rooms and then report back to the big room), technology heavy (like turning a physical card game into an online card game), or anywhere in between. Whether you are able to do this will depend on your learning goals, the specifics of the activity, and the resources available to you and your participants. There are an increasing number of existing CSE games available online, and using those is a great idea!
Asynchronous Platforms
Playing games that are designed for a F2F experience in an asynchronous format is incredibly difficult. There are a few games (often called simulations or sims) that are specifically designed for learning in an asynchronous way, but there are few (possibly zero) designed for sexuality education. As education increases its digital integration, it is possible that we will see increasing numbers of sims for sex ed online. In the meantime, it may be possible to modify some of your F2F games if you are creative with the tools available in your LMS.
Social Media
Online games are often fun, but maintaining attention over social media can be difficult. Games on these kinds of platforms are best organized through live video streams with lots of viewers. If this is not something that is possible, it may be best to leave games for another time.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
As with all content related to sexuality and sexual health, and particularly when it is being presented digitally, it’s critical to keep a trauma informed lens in mind. While this is as true with games and physical activities as with everything else, it may be easier to forget about in an attempt to be more fun.
In class speaker 
Synchronous Platforms
Have a speaker come in and participate in the Zoom from their own location. Be sure to do a test run with their technology beforehand!
Asynchronous Platforms
Have a speaker work with you to collect readings for the week, write your LMS processes, respond to them, and grade them (as applicable).
Social Media
Guest posters on social media platforms can be very fun and can capitalize on synergy between social media accounts.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
This is a great thing! Especially if you know people who are able to speak who are part of a population that your participant group may not have much connection with. Some examples include someone who is living with HIV, who is trans or nonbinary, has been in an abusive relationship, etc. You do need to make sure that the speaker is prepared and has experience discussing their personal experiences in a public environment. Collecting questions from your participants to share with the speaker beforehand is useful.
Large group discussion 
Synchronous Platforms
This is hard to do in a synchronous space with more than 10 participants. In fact, unless you and your participants all have extraordinary technology and internet access, large group synchronous discussions should just be skipped in favor of small group discussions.
Asynchronous Platforms
This is the standard discussion option in most LMS’s. It’s high quality, useful, and can produce really effective discussions, especially when you opt for responses to be threaded and require participants to respond to one or more posts from their peers.
Social Media
This is, in many ways, exactly what social media was originally created for. Drawing followers into a conversation takes skill and finesse, but it can definitely be done!
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
For a best practices approach to asynchronous discussions, you have to read everything! You don’t have to respond to everything, but you should respond to some of the discussion threads, actively taking part in the conversations, as you would in a F2F large group discussion.
Lecture 
Synchronous Platforms
You can lecture in a video call just the same way as you would in a classroom, including presenting your slides. However, in the online space it’s very difficult to tell if your participants are paying attention to a lecture. They may turn their cameras off (for legitimate reasons like their wifi can’t handle the load, or because they are tuning out or even walking away). They may click off of the video conference screen so that they can take notes (legitimate) or because they’re messaging a friend (probably not legitimate). While they may zone out in a classroom, this is obviously different. So keep lectures short – absolutely no more than 5 minutes for ages 11 – 14, 7 minutes for ages 15 – 16, and 10 minutes for those aged 17 and over. Immediately follow any lecture time with an active engagement activity.
Asynchronous Platforms
You can record yourself giving a lecture, just as you would in a flipped classroom, and students can use it in much the same way. They will be able to pause the video to work out details or take notes. The videos must be short – absolutely no more than 5 minutes for 6 – 8th grades, 7 minutes for 9 – 10th grades, and 10 minutes for 11 – 12th grades – and make sure that they provide information that directly applies to an activity that comes immediately after the video in the classroom flow. This can be something like a short, factual, multiple choice quiz, but is ideally more dynamic and engaging. Have a look over the other approaches for ideas.
Social Media
Lectures can be a bit harder because followers rarely spend a long time in one place on social media. Breaking down lecture topics into short, bite-sized pieces that are presented as a series will allow participants to continuously engage with more complex topics over time.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
When lecturing F2F, you are able to assess participants’ reactions to your lecture. Even though you will miss some reactions, you will have something to gauge the flow of your lecture. This is never true in online lectures, whether they are synchronous or recorded. You will not know if a student is hurt or triggered by something you say, and so your attentiveness to your language and how it is trauma informed is critical. This guide by Cardea on trauma informed sex ed is a great introduction to the topic and should probably be required reading for people working in online sex ed every six months or so:
-> Guide to Trauma-Informed Sex Education
Passing around items (i.e., menstrual products or contraception options) 
Synchronous Platforms
Have either videos, an assortment of high quality pictures, from different angles, and showing all elements of the item, or the items to hold up to your own camera. For example, when showing images of a tampon, there should be pictures of each of the following: a tampon in its closed wrapper, a tampon mostly out of its wrapper, a tampon without the wrapper, a tampon partly pushed out of its applicator, and a tampon pushed completely out of its applicator. This step-bystep imagery will allow you to verbally go over each element of a tampon in detail. You could include some menstrual products, especially disposable menstrual products, in a list of class supplies.
Asynchronous Platforms
There are often YouTube videos that capture details of these items, but if you cannot find one that you feel adequately shows the item you are trying to provide information around, you could create your own or you could use the picture technique described in the synchronous options and post them in your LMS along with detailed descriptions.
Social Media
From a distance, this is difficult, but the possibilities of links, pictures, descriptions, and personal information sharing offers many alternative possibilities for follower learning.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
The things that facilitators pass around during sex ed classes are typically items that people use and manipulate in very personal ways. Finding ways to be as detailed as possible when modifying the F2F experience of holding them will offer support to participants who have never seen or held these items but who may find themselves needing to use them without any
additional F2F support.
Readings 
Synchronous Platforms
While in person it’s common to ask for volunteers to read things aloud, this is somewhat more difficult to do as part of a synchronous class because there are not the same kinds of body language cues. Instead, you can integrate the written words into slides and read them yourself or include videos of people on YouTube reading. Follow up with small group discussions or integrated polls that ask for responses, thoughts, and opinions.
Asynchronous Platforms
These are easy to provide to participants as part of the learning flow, in a discussion board question (if you would like responses), as a video of you (or someone on YouTube) reading it, etc. Participants can respond via the discussion board or through assignments.
Social Media
Many social media platforms are visualrather than word-based. However, when followers have a trusted relationship with an organization they are more likely to click links and read blog posts and other information on the organization’s website.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
Whether synchronous or asynchronous it’s important that readings are used to create participant engagement. Similar to lectures, keep them short and sweet. You also have the option of adding on short quizzes at the end of the reading. These quizzes aren’t necessary for grades, but to clarify participant engagement and to make sure they grasped the information. The data also allows you to keep track of participant progress at different points throughout a class.
Referring to resources 
Synchronous Platforms
This is relatively easy to do, as all platforms have a chat box where you can drop in book titles, links, images, and more. Make sure that any resources you mention verbally are included in the chat box for participants who may have missed what you said.
Asynchronous Platforms
This is incredibly easy to do, either through the discussion boards, announce- ments, or a combination of both.
Social Media
This is also easy to do through normal social media links and connections. What may be important to consider is the ways that hashtags can increase connection and resource access via social media.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
Some facilitators are heavy on providing additional resources and some facilitators don’t give out as many. This is as true online as it is in F2F cla ses. Online classes do lend themselves to more additional, outside resources because they are so easy to give. Make sure that your resources are accurate,
live, and up to date every time before distributing them.
Role play 
Synchronous Platforms
If participants have access to video cameras and microphones, you can invite them to volunteer to role play with each other either in the large group or in breakout rooms. Most video programs will allow participants to volunteer by virtually raising their hands, turning on their video (if it is typically off), or raising their actual hands or a piece of paper (if their video is typically on). This will only work if you have a group who is really excited about role play- ing! If your group is somewhat less excited, you can have them create scripts (either to act out or to just read through). This can be done individually, in pairs, or small groups in breakout rooms and then shared out with the whole group in a variety of ways.
Asynchronous Platforms
There are at least two creative ways for roleplays to take place asynchronously: (1) The facilitator can assign small groups to create scripts for a scenario that are then shared with the large group. (2) The facilitator can assign a large group discussion where participants begin an interaction or dialogue and then respond to at least two of their peers’ beginning dialogues, continuing the conversation that they started.
Social Media
This is a complex, if not impossible, process via social media because of the problems associated with a clear back-andforth between two specific people. Rather than focusing on a project that would be really difficult, it may be easier to ask followers to think about (and post about, with a hashtag), how they would respond to a certain situation.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
Facilitator engagement with role plays online is just as crucial as facilitator engagement is F2F. Because role playing brings up many examples of proble- matic communication and potentially triggering responses, facilitators always need to be on top of their game when creating this kind of environment. Given the difficulties of ensuring that triggering issues are fully addressed in the online space, role plays need to be even more closely tended to. Therefore, facilitators should respond to online roleplays immediately after the roleplays or scripts are presented and in the same format.live, and up to date every time before distributing them.
Small group discussion 
Synchronous Platforms
This is a well loved component of many sex ed classrooms, and doesn’t need to go away just because you’re working in an online, synchronous setting. Most video meeting and conference platforms have the capacity for small breakout rooms. The facilitator can assign participants to the rooms or have them randomly assigned and drop the discussion question(s) into the chat box. After the discussions, participants can share their conversations with the large group just as they would in a F2F classroom, although the share-out is typically less engaging online than it is in person. If you opt not to have a live small group share-out, you may use the option described in the asynchronous column.
Asynchronous Platforms
Most LMS’s allow you to put together small discussion groups. You will have the benefit of reading everything that is said, and you should. This allows you to respond directly to problematic or inaccurate information. Reporting out
to the large group can happen, although it may be best for the small groups to submit a file summarizing their discussion to the facilitator who then posts that for everyone to see and (potentially) respond to. A slide show, where each group has their own slide reporting out, is a great way to do this.
Social Media
These are difficult to do via standard social media protocols, but with groups that would benefit from small group discussions, these are possible via direct messaging or by switching over to another platform like WhatsApp.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
When you are putting together digital discussion groups, each group should have between 4 and 5 participants and a facilitator to maintain and support respectful dialogue and redirect as needed. It is possible that for a particularly strong group, or an older group, a facilitator will feel comfortable either letting the participants discuss independently or assigning a peer leader to each small group.
Voting activities 
Synchronous Platforms
Voting activities can be very effective in an online space. Many platforms have an integrated polling function. If yours doesn’t, you can always use an external one like Mentimeter and provide the link in the chat box. You can also use a program like Google Forms for participants to fill out prior to or during the session. If your participants all have video and associated wifi capacity available to them, you can ask them to have red, yellow, and green pieces of paper on their desk to hold up in front of their faces or everyone can give a thumbs up, to the side, or down.
Asynchronous Platforms
Many LMS’s have polling systems. If yours does not, you can use third party platforms, like Google Forms. Participants answer the questions and you can post the collected responses and invite dialogue about them in a discussion board or assignment.
Social Media
Many social media platforms have polling options now that can readily be used for voting activities. If the one you are on does not, you can use an external one that includes an asynchronous option like Poll Everywhere.
Sex Ed Specific Thoughts
It is critical to respond to and discuss voting activities. Because these answers are often so personal, leaving them unaddressed can feel disrespectful to participants. Discussing the results of a voting activity poll in a synchronous setting can be done very similarly to a F2F classroom. The facilitator can discuss why people may have answered as they did, provide input from perspectives that are different from the class’s, and even invite individual
participants to share their thoughts if they have microphone access. When discussing the results of this kind of activity in an asynchronous setting, it is important to highlight all parts of the spectrum and outline potential motivation for where people may have selected to land. This doesn’t mean sharing your personal opinion, just a possible opinion. You may decide to provide space for participants to actively discuss their answers or not. If you are collecting anonymous responses, participants may actually appreciate using a platform other than the video/LMS platform because it adds a layer of privacy.
