KAHOOT!
TECH TOOLS
Kahoot! (getkahoot.com)! It’s educational, engaging, and FREE.
What can you find in Kahoot?
- Questions, pre-written by the teacher.
- Devices for all people(or small groups) participating to use to answer (any Internet-ready device … they use kahoot.it as the web address to answer questions).
- Leaderboard. If your students are like mine, they’ll plead to play Kahoot! all the time because they want to be on that leaderboard.
Setting up a Kahoot! is so easy, too. You can have quizzes (ask questions to play the game), quick polls (a single question to gather info and spark discussion) and surveys (to collect feedback).
A device for every student (or at least one each for small groups of students) is necessary to make Kahoot! work.
How can Kahoot! be integrated into the classroom and various places in the school?
There are some obvious answers and some not-so-obvious answers.
Here are 10 ideas to get you Kahooting in no time.
1. Drill vocabulary — If meaningful repetitions of vocabulary terms help students to remember them, this will do it. A quick game of Kahoot! with your current vocabulary list won’t take much time and will get them engaged right away.
2. Reading comprehension — After reading a story, article or (gasp!) chapter in a textbook, Kahoot! can help you assess how much students remembered.
3. Current events — Because a Kahoot! can be created so simply, you can give students questions on the most current of topics. If part of your class is following news, a quick Kahoot! can check how up to date they are.
4. Identify images — Artwork. Diagrams. Photos of terms. A picture can bring a concept to life, and they can be uploaded (YouTube videos, too) to Kahoot! questions. Use them to ask a question instead of words to better illustrate your content.
5. Club announcements and news — Kahoot! can bring club meetings to life. Go over the important points of the meeting with students and, at the end of the meeting, see who was paying attention with a Kahoot!.
6. Sports team rules — As a former golf coach, I was charged with teaching athletes the rules of the game. If I only had Kahoot! back then! Instead of just saying “remember these,” it would give each player more incentive to learn them.
7. Staff meeting opener
8. Find already-created public Kahoots — Kahoot! can give you something useful to do if you find yourself with several extra minutes to fill at the end of class. Search public Kahoots for your content area, preview questions of the ones you find by clicking on the title, and send them out to the class — all in a minute or so!
9. Turn learners to leaders — Kahoot! promotes this great use of its site: using questioning as an assessment tool. Instead of teachers creating Kahoots, students can create them. Their ability to write good questions and create answers (even the wrong ones!) shows a lot about how well they understand content.
10. Relive memories with family — OK, this one isn’t a class- or school-based idea, but I’m going to use it! I’ve entertained my family with publicly available Kahoots (not all of them are strictly academic). Some of my students have said they want to have a Kahoot! party with their friends! Hmm … educational technology so engaging that students want to base a party around it … something is right here!
Any other ideas for utilizing Kahoot!?
Share them in a comment, or tell us which idea most appeals to you!