During my last prac, I was introduced to an online program called ‘Kahoot’ (click HERE to visit the main site) by a pre-service teacher from the University of Queensland. At my prac school, each student as per their book list, was required to have a personal iPad that assisted in making Kahoot a success within the classroom.
Some background on Kahoot:
Kahoot is a webpage created for educators (as well as anyone else I guess) in the implementation of creating an online ‘trivia style’ game. In my case I used it in year 9 business studies and year 11BCT as an in class interactive revision game.
Prior to the lesson, I created a multiple choice game based around the content the students in each class had learn’t over the unit duration. Kahoot was super easy to use for us teachers. All we needed was a list of set questions, the answer as well as three other possible answer to insert. Once the teacher has completed this, they are issued a ‘game key’ consisting of a four digit pin to play and interact.
When the students arrived to class with their iPad’s, they were told to visit THIS special Kahoot page, where they inserted the ‘game pin’ and a username to access my specialised game (please note – only students with the game pin could play the game. The students had 2min to access the game at the same time – during this time, as each student logged in their name – which I had instructed MUST be their first name and the first initial of their surname into the game. As they logged in, their name would appeared on the projected screen from the ‘teachers screen page’ on the kahoot site and where the questions to each question would also appeared further on).
Once this had occurred and when I could see every students name in the class appear on the ‘participants’ screen, the game was ready to be played. On each individual student iPad, they could see only the letters a, b, c, and d which correlated with the answers to the multiple choice questions on the screen. As each question appeared on the projected screen, students had one minute to answer the question. After each question a graph showing the percentage of students answering the correct question, as well as the percentage of the incorrect answers showed on screen. This continued on until all questions that the teacher created had been answered.
Also at the end of the game, the top three students were shown on the screen – this created a sense of competitiveness between the students, and you could actually see the students really try at the questions.
What is the most valuable part of using Kahoot though for teachers, I hear you ask? At the end of the game, teachers are presented with a spreadsheet detailing valuable information on what questions students got right, what they got wrong as well as the answers each individual student gave, what questions received the most correct and what received the most incorrect. This data given from Kahoot is amazing! I was able to use this data to see what I needed to go back and re-cover with the students prior to exam time. I asked the students before leaving class that day to give me a show of hands on who enjoyed the Kahoot game (I received every hand up, even from the year 11s) as well as who found it useful (again received every hand up from year 9 and year 11). From this advice and from my personal experience (especially the data it collated and gave to the teacher), I will most definitely be using the Kahoot program again within the classroom and am so glad a kind student was willing to share with me this resource (something of which I am now passing on to you all!!!)
I hope my account was useful! Below is a YouTube clip on how to use Kahoot if my account is not clear. I really recommend watching this video, it will really help you get a better understanding Kahoot as well as its processes and how it can be of value within the classroom.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYfoRRtLXys
Yours in blogging,