Problem | Solution

Sally Bourque | Founder

With nearly a decade of experience supporting online/blended teaching and training across Canada, I've witnessed astronomical improvements in synchronous teaching solutions, however, gaps still exist.

One of the most significant is related to the complexity of creating and managing effective group "break-out" activities during online, synchronous classes.

PROBLEMS: Complexity and Time

Many synchronous meeting solutions offer a break-out room function, allowing teachers to (easily) create and control a series of rooms for group-work. HOWEVER most do not provide tools or resources to manage content and communication within those break-out spaces, and if they do, it tends to be a clunky, limited interface.


In a face-to-face classroom, smaller group activities tend to be easier to manage 'on-the-fly'; the teacher can post activity instructions at the front of the room, quickly distribute hand-outs, scan faces for understanding and circulate to ensure students are on task.


In a virtual classroom, these tasks become more challenging to manage and designing group activities that are engaging but not overtly complicated by additional technology presents yet another challenge.


Talk-A-Bout is the solution. The careful design of each activity, combined with built-in tutorials ensures students always understand the task and expectations. Set-up is a breeze in the teacher interface.

Teacher Experience:


  • Talk-A-Bout delivers beautiful, flexible, templated activities, designed and tested by teachers to facilitate higher quality group-activities in synchronous teaching environments.


  • Three basic templates ensure teachers have a spectrum of activity-types to chose from without becoming overwhelmed.


  • Templates will be pre-loaded with instructions, which can optionally be adjusted by the teacher as they create each new activity.


  • In just a few minutes, teachers can customize their first activity, select "save" & "launch" to generate links for each student group. Group links can then be posted ahead of time to an LMS, or shared in the meeting chat during class.


Teacher//Trainer Dashboard

Teacher/Trainer: Setting-up a new activity

Student Activity Welcome


Student Activity Screen 1

Student Experience:

  • Students merely click the link provided by their teacher to open the activity

  • The automated user-experience design will guide them through each activity, with the option to "turn tutorial off".

  • When the activity is over, students have the option to download a PDF and share to a gallery for assessment or presentation to the class.


All activities are web-based , designed for accessibility, auto-save and require no student sign-in.

Student Activity Screen 2