Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Kahoot!


Have you heard of Kahoot?!  It's fantastic!  It combines learning with your students' love of games and devices.  And it's FREE!  Teachers love it because you can print out a spreadsheet of student data.  It's web based, so you can use it with laptops, too.  It's a fun and effective way to assess your students' learning.

How to Kahoot:
Go to getkahoot.com to sign up for free.  Once you're signed up, you have a choice of creating a quiz, a discussion or a survey.  But WAIT!  At the top you'll see "Public Kahoots".   If you click here you can search through pre-made quizzes by searching by your topic. There are some great things ready to use - what a time saver!  Creating your own quiz/
discussion/survey is really easy, too, if you can't find something "perfect" that fits your needs. 

Quiz
This is for collecting data on your class. This is just like giving a multiple choice quiz on paper, but it is WAY more fun because of its game-like format. The teacher enters questions and answer choices, and then you're all set to "Launch".  You can add images and video to your questions, too.   The data is collected as you go so you can easily identify students who have mastered the skill and which students need more support..

Discussion
This option is meant to spark a discussion with your class with just one question.  I honestly haven't used it - I don't think it fits as well in a math class.  Either that or I haven't figured out how to use it in a way that benefits my class.I'd love to hear from you if you've figured out a successful way to use this!

Survey
The survey is very much like a quiz, but there are no scores.  I suppose this would be a great option for classes whose competitive nature causes problems.


It's really this easy to use!

Creating a Quiz:
1.  Select Quiz
2.  Enter a (unique) title.
3.  Enter the question and the amount of time you want students to have and then enter your answer choices.  Make sure you indicate the correct answer with the green button.  
4.  When you're done adding questions, click "Next".
5.  Add a cover image.  *You can also choose music to play while students are signing up.  Really sets the mood!

And that's IT!  Your Quiz will be stored under "My Kahoots" tab on top.  When you click here, you will see a list of your creations.  There is an option next to the title that says "Share".  This is where you can enter your colleagues' user name and it will populate in their account!  I shared one with Mrs. B. a couple of weeks ago and it worked seamlessly!

Game Time! 
1.  You log in to Kahoot, on your projector/computer.  Find the Kahoot you want to use under "My Kahoots" tab on top.  Click "Play".
2.  Students log in to www.kahoot.it
3.  When you're ready to begin, click LAUNCH on the Quiz you want to use.
4.  The game-pin will be displayed.  Students log in using this code and sign in with their name (or their class #!  Their name will show when they're successfully signed in.
5.   Click "Start Now" when your students have all joined.  (It will show the # of students).
6.  There will be a wait time before the question and answer choices are displayed.  (Answer choices are only displayed on the projector, not on their devices.  Weird, right?)
7.  The timer will countdown on the screen depending on how much time you assigned the problem.
8.  When time is up, or when all students have answered, you will see the results.  You can also review the image here if you'd like.  Then you can click "next" to see the Leader board. 

*  Students are given immediate feedback if they are right or wrong AND they're given their ranking in the class by points earned!  This is really motivating and exciting for the students and what makes it so fun! 

Gathering Data:
At the conclusion of the game, you can select "Save Results".  You have the option of saving it to Google Drive, or downloading a spreadsheet.  It will break down the results by student and by question.  It's impressively thorough!

I really hope you'll try this app.  It does require access to devices, but you can easily put students into teams if you have limited devices to share.  I promise you, it's worth it.  The kids really do enjoy playing and it's incredibly valuable in terms of gathering data!  Definitely a Win-Win!

No comments:

Post a Comment