Why Kahoot?

Kahoot is a great program to use as a teacher to get your students excited for what you're teaching them.  It's a great way to teach content in any subject and instantly makes students engaged because of the fun game component it has.  As a teacher you can use Kahoot as your secret weapon for getting students to enjoy going to your class while at the same time learning new information that will stick with them.

As a teacher you need to know how Kahoot works if you're going to be able to use it effectively in your classroom.  You want to first search Kahoot in your web browser to get to their website.  You want to sign up for an account and click the option of creating an account as a teacher.  This will allow you to have a free account so you can start to make a Kahoot for your class.  Another option that Kahoot is coming out with is Kahoot! Pro which is just $1 a month and is aimed at teachers as well.  By paying for their services Kahoot allows you to co-create games with your fellow teachers, share and view advanced reports from the games, and create Kahoot's 3x as fast with their extensive image library.  Of course this is just something to consider once you have actually used Kahoot so lets get into how you would do that.

To create a Kahoot you start by clicking the create button on the top right side of your screen.  You will have 4 options to select from for creating your Kahoot and they are:

• Quiz
• Jumble
• Discussion
• Survey

     When you create a quiz for your Kahoot you have many options right off the start.  You have to give a title and a description for what your Kahoot will be about.  Then you get to upload an image that will be used for the cover image of your Kahoot.  You have options to determine who can play your Kahoot, the language being used, and you can even add an intro video for when students are waiting for the Kahoot to begin. You then can hit next to start creating questions you want to add.  You can type in any question and then add in four possible answers. Keep adding questions until you're done and then you can save it so you have it ready for your next class!

When you finally do play the Kahoot you just go to your account and click on the Kahoot to start it.  You can pick the classic option where everyone answers on their own device or the team mode where students share a device and answer questions collectively.  Once you pick an option the game will begin and you will hear the unforgettable Kahoot music start playing.  There will then be a game pin that pops up that students can type into their device to join the game.  Let the fun begin!

All of the options follow the same initial creating steps that I mentioned in the quiz option.  The only difference is how they are played. For the jumble option on Kahoot, instead of coming up with 4 multiple choice answers you put your answers in the correct order.  For example, for a history kahoot the question might be order these events from earliest in history to latest and as the student you'd have to put the jumbled up places from which occurred earliest in history to latest.  This is a cool way to practice dates and numbers when it comes to learning new information.

The third option is called discussion.  This tool is meant to spark a debate through the use of coming up with a question and displaying it on Kahoot.  Students should be told to discuss with someone near them or it can be turned into a whole classroom discussion.  Then when everyone is done talking students vote on the one answer out of four that they believe to be correct.  This can be an interactive way to start the class by talking about a big idea that relates to the topic you are teaching in class.

Lastly, there is the survey option which is very similar to the quiz option as well.  You create a question and then come up with four possible answers.  This is helpful as a teacher for figuring out what your classroom likes or what they think about a certain topic.  It gives you quick results which can be helpful in getting to know your students on a more personal level.

The reason students love Kahoot is because it's a competitive game where students get to see how well they are doing compared to their peers.  After each question the top five student's names are shown on the leader board and kids love to be the winner at the end.  Points are based off how fast you answer the question as well as if you get it right or not.  Students can use any mobile device or laptop to play the game.  The game is able to create a family game night type of feel and it's great to see kids come out of their shells when they get to do something they enjoy.  To see what I mean take a look at the video below.

From a teacher's perspective Kahoot allows students to learn new information in a quick and interesting way.  The quickness of the game makes students think quick on their feet and informs them how well they really know the material.  If it's taking them too long to answer the questions they probably need a refresher on the material.  At the end of each game you also get to see the results of the students that played and see who is struggling.  This game allows you to create any type of question for any subject material which makes it a versatile program that every teacher should know how to use. 

References
Kahoot logo [Online image]. Retrieved October 2nd, 2018 from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/bee/study/play-kahoot/

Kahoot video [Online video]. Retrieved October 2nd, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhK6sOQcPQ8