Distance learning has swept the world. The abrupt pivot away from in-person was required of teachers, preachers, therapists, doctors, counselors, and everyone else who serves the public en masse last March. Teachers being the creative folks they are began turning to Bitmoji Classrooms to offer community and connections to their students.

With the uncertainty of what the new school year would bring, many professional educators continued to jump on the Bitmoji Classroom bandwagon. It has became a game-changer for therapists, specialists, leaders, bloggers, educators, and especially many of us in ministry with children.

A Bitmoji Classroom is essentially a secure landing page which can hold all other elements you wish to teach as well as some next steps. Embedding and attaching links into the images built into the virtual classroom, students and families can take the learning as far as they wish with carefully and specifically curated content. Saving it as a downloaded pdf lets you share an uneditable page and the fun begins.

With a Gmail account the virtual classroom is built on a Google slide (or powerpoint slide) with transparent images curated from online image searches or your computer. Links can be inserted from YouTube, Google notes, Google docs, and more, all on one landing page/slide. You set the security and sharing capabilities for each virtual classroom/slide. Because it’s Google, the last change made stays and offers an updated link to share. If you have a Gmail account, you automatically have a YouTube account and can build a library of private videos to give your virtual classroom a personal touch directly from your church/organization. My hair is a mess in the first one I uploaded, so I can only go up from there!

The possibilities are endless, but we’ve begun to look at it for curating and preparing content as a starter page for all types of Christian education. We’ve set up a classroom for Sunday school (pictured above, but without links due to copyrighted material in the videos, but you get the idea,) a Hometown Family Mission Adventure for October to partner with the church-wide Stewardship campaign, and Advent.

Your teacher friends are already all over this and can offer a private tutoring lesson. An amazing servant leader discovered the possibilities and shared it with me. I tossed it out on Facebook asking if anyone knew about the bitmoji classroom and would be willing to chat. A fabulous girlfriend-in-the-Lord who is an elementary school target teacher tutored me virtually through a couple of hours. Our amazing IT Lead updated my church laptop with a recording camera and microphone. In less than a week, the online Treehouse was ready to start for Sunday school. I can gather participation metrics by the number of clicks onto the YouTube personal message.

Listening to a Church Communications webinar mid-summer reminded me that doing anything is better than doing nothing. A weekly email or social media post with links for content was fine, but I wanted more interaction and kid-friendly engagement. Want to learn more? These are the two tutorials that helped me the most. There is also a robust educators Facebook group which offers even more. We’re just getting started! 
Building a Bitmoji Classroom Tutorial
Hello Teacher Lady: How to Create a Bitmoji Classroom 

“You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.” Psalm 86:5