Sunday, May 29, 2016

Do you Kahoot?

Talk about a Hoot?! This game was introduced to me by my good friend, Jill! It is a great way to review a skill or check students' understanding that gives immediate feedback.

My students love games and even more so when technology is incorporated! As a teacher I can sign up for FREE; create my own account; create a Kahoot game or check a ton of other Kahoots that fellow teachers have created and use with my class. 

I can easily create questions and provide four different responses. I check off which one is the correct answer. Instead of ABCD choices; shape/colors are the  responses. Each question can be given a time limit as well! I can create as many or as few questions as possible. It is extremely easy to do and very user friendly. 

Here's how it works.... Once I found a game or created one; I start the game. I project my game onto my class overhead projector. Students have to enter the game pin on their own device to get the exact game! This allows for connectivity and interaction! Students are asked to put in a nickname and once they join. As a class, we can see the names of those that have joined, as well as the number of participants that is displayed for all to see on the overhead. My classroom has ten iPads; so I either have students pair up or  borrow iPads from another class! Personally, I prefer the latter so that all students are engaged! 

What I love about the game is that the question and answer choices are only on the teachers version which is displayed for all students to see. The student devices only show the shape/color of the answer choices! 

As students answer, the number of participant responses pop up on the teacher version; therefore, I know how many answered quickly by either knowing it just trying to rush. I know this because after the time for each question is up; a bar graph shows up displaying the number of students that got the correct answer and the number of students that answered each of the other responses. If I am in the back of the room, I can easily see who got answers incorrect because their screen is red and will remain that way until I move into the next question. This provides me with quick feedback, and I know which students that I need to continue working in the particular skill with during guided reading/math groups or for intervention purposes. Since each child provided a nickname, each student is awarded points for how quickly they answered the correct response. On the screen, it will show the leaderboard after each question based on their point value. It even tells each student what place they are in on their individual devices. 

The students proclaimed this as their favorite classroom game all school year. I can understand why.... It is a must try classroom tool. It motivates and gets all students engaged especially as we wind down the year! I would love to hear your experiences with the game too, so please be sure to comment!!!