Silent discussions have always been one of my favorite discussion warm-ups. Normally I’d have students write a question at the top of their notebook, then pass it left, respond, pass, then read and respond, pass, then read and respond, etc. Then I’d open the discussion by asking someone to read their question. Since several kids would already have written responses and read others’ responses, things usually picked up quickly. 

This activity modifies easily to digital. You can create a collaborative question slide deck (feel free to use these slide templates that I made for you). Then invite each student to add a question to the top of one slide and begin adding responses on others’ slides. You can ask them to respond and read on maybe five slides, and then begin your class discussion based on the questions and answers they’ve already been exploring. If you make this a regular practice, the tech will soon seem simple to the kids. This could easily be a weekly practice. While I might change up discussion warm-ups pretty constantly in person, keeping clear expectations and patterns can be helpful online!