I first learned about Kahoot two summers ago while attending a tech conference and immediately knew it was a tool that both my students and I were going to love. This FREE, engaging web-based tool turns your classroom into a game show, similar to a trivia night at a restaurant and can be used with any age level or content area. Teachers can create their own multiple choice questions, use premade games, and even have students create their own Kahoots. Students earn points for how quickly they choose the correct answer, and are able to participate by using a unique PIN number and connecting to answer with their own web-based device (desktop, tablet, smartphone, etc.).
There are lots of innovative ways to use this tool in your classroom, but to keep it simple, here are some basics:
- Formative assessment: Develop questions in quiz mode to monitor your students’ progress. After each question, you can see how many students chose each answer and can quickly gauge problem areas. Kahoot also creates a spreadsheet with the results from each game, so you can see student specific data as well. As an alternative, you could even have the students create the questions!
- Discussion: Create a single question to gather information and spark discussion. This mode would not be competitive. For example, you could pose a question about the best part of a novel the class has read. Students would choose one of the answers, you’d all be able to see the data, and the discussion could go from there.
- Survey: Create multiple questions to gather feedback or find out what the class knows. This mode is also not competitive and could be a way to give students an active voice in the classroom.
- Ghost mode: This is a new option that you can use after completing a game of Kahoot! According to the Kahoot site, “Ghost mode is a great way to encourage learners to compete against themselves as well as each other. It gives players a chance to beat their previous score and provides immediate feedback. You can also set a game for homework. Learners can create their own Kahoot! account so they can play again (and again!) against themselves in preview mode until they have mastered the topic.”
Here are some great tutorials to help you get started, both of which walk through the steps of creating an account:
Note: If/when wireless connections are not available, the computer labs in all buildings are a great option OR the next few weeks could be a prime time just to explore this tool, and then plan for introducing it to the students when the wireless is ready and there are more device options!
If anyone has used Kahoot in their classroom, or has any questions or feedback, please feel free to comment below!
I read a little bit about it... not too in depth, but here is a question. Can you create these "Kahoots" for students to do on their own time? I like the idea of using it in the classroom, but maybe also for homework assignments? Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteAdam, the students can register for free and play the Kahoot in preview mode. You can: Make the Kahoot Public & Searchable; You can email the Kahoot to the student's smdutch.net accounts; Or you can paste it on your Class Blog or Website. If desired, students can download their results and submit them for credit.
ReplyDeleteGreat Question.
You can also have the students make Kahoots, which I like to do for basic memorization tasks (vocab, formulas, etc).
ReplyDeleteAt the end if your Kahoot you can now download your results to your google drive. Everything is saved - who won, how many answers each kid got right, which answers they got right, which questions were missed the most. Putting a concrete grade to this just got that much easier and you can look over your results to determine what needs worked on tomorrow. They were giving this data before but now you can easily save it to look at later. Win.
ReplyDelete