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I agree that Kahoot is fun and engaging. There are so many great apps out there like Nearpod, Quizziz, and Smithsonian. I think the apps can work as a way for students to self-assess after conducting experiments or as a way for students to create questions to challenge other students' learning.

Kahoot is awesome! I have seen it used in other classrooms before as a pre-service teacher and I can't wait to try it in my own classroom soon!!

Hello Raquel, I am a first semester student teacher in Houston Texas. I have to say that I love using Kahoots. I remember using them in many of my college courses which made it fun and exciting. Recently, my cooperating teacher and I had a training where we learned about another program that is similar to Kahoots which I think you might like as well. It is called Quizziz. The difference that I found interesting was that when using Quizziz, the teacher could assign the students "homework." This would allow the students, if they can, practice for tests at home on their own time. We tried it out just today in the classroom as a quick test and the students absolutely enjoyed it. At the end of each class, all the students had asked if we could use this more often for future tests. Eddy Martinez

Raquel, I couldn't agree more! I'm a student teacher and I am always looking for engaging activities to do with my students. I am in a fifth grade class and I don't know about ya'll but in the spring we are getting ready for all those state exams and those can be so boring for students. Kahoot is an awesome alternative to studying for key terms and implementing strategies they need to know for these tests. I want to add a great tidbit of info for those who haven't tried this. They have pre-made "exams or quizzes" for almost anything you could imagine. For example, I am in a reading and writing class right now and we had a substitute on Friday. We got done with our lessons and such super early, but I still wanted to give my students the opportunity to study for their benchmark this week. This was perfect because I went on to their website and searched for 5th grade reading and writing S.T.A.R. and there were many to choose from. If you are in a crunch for time but want to give your students some extra tlc this is perfect! Try it out!!

Raquel talking about kahoots, I agree with you they are engaging for children. Recently, I was observing a 5th grade science class and let me tell you they were actively learning as they answered questions about the the ecosystem. Its fun for them because they get to play in teams, and that means theres competition between them. Kahoots can be used as a summative assessment right after the teacher is finished teaching a lesson about any subject. I learned that games like Kahoot are helpful for teachers to help them see which students understand and which students to not understand.

Raquel, Thank you for sharing about Kahoot. I am currently student teaching in a 4th grade Math and Science. Due to standardize testing Science more often than not gets shoved in the corner. In the rare occasion that we do have a few minutes for Science the students are either working on pages from their textbooks or using an I-pad for research on a topic. With the students already using technology to research, I think it is great for them to have an alternate game based learning platform. This will be very engaging as students love to play games. Once Thank you for the information.

Hi Raquel! Thank you for sharing to us about Kahoot. I am currently student teaching in an elementary school and actually have never heard of Kahoot or seen it in class before. I’m in a reading/math class, so having knowing about this app will give me ideas for my future classroom. And I could share it to other teachers because now in classes we have so many technology devices and students are easily engaged to technology.

Hello Raquel, I agree with you on this! Kahoot is a fun resource to use in the classroom, it sure does grab the student's attention. I have used Kahoot before and it was a fun expereince! Technology is a very important aspect in today's classroom setting, using Kahoot allows the students to interact with technology. Personally, I would use Kahoot in my future classroom. Thank you for the advice. 

Hi Raquel, 

As a student and a future teacher I think that Kahoot is great tool to implement in a classroom because it's fun and it helps asses students understaning. I've had professors use Kahoot and I really enjoyed the excercise we had. I can't way to have my own classroom and use innovative ways to make learning exciting. 

Has anyone had their students try the Kahoot on their phone? If so, how did your students respond? I have done Kahoots on the Chromebooks and I know that my students love them. They even ask me to do more of them. Definitely a nice tool to have in the toolbox!

Hello, I totally agree! Kahoot helps a lot with student engagement in the classroom. It is a fun effective way to get students involved and see how much they actually know. Kahoot's design promotes independent knowledge and thinking. I believe that it also alleviates some of the students' stress when it comes to testing. 

Hello,

I agree, Kahoot is an amazing tool to use in the classroom. I have used kahoot for activities with students in after school programs, with college student, clubs and organization and they all seem to love it. It brings a level of excitment to the learning process. They want to win and in order to win you have to answer the fastest and correctly. As a future educator, I plan on using Kahoot in my classroom

Hi Raquel!

I agree that Kahoot is a great resource to use in classrooms. Along with using it as review, you can also use it as a formative assessment to figure out what your students know! I used this to start a lesson in a 3rd grade classroom about genes, and how we inherit them from our parents. For the Kahoot, we showed pictures of two dogs, and the students had to pick the picture of the dog that they think would come from the two parent dogs. This was a great way to get the students excited, and see what all they knew already!

I've used Kahoot sometimes and have also found that many of the kids get thoroughly engaged.  However, I've had a hard time getting everybody in a middle school class to join the games.  They use unrecognizable names to join so it's hard to find out which 12 kids in a class of 25 are refusing to join.  I think it tends to be the kids who do not know the subject or are slow processors and have learned that they always lose to the 'smart' kids and quick readers.  Some of the regular teachers I know have quit using it for this reason. 

Do any of you know if I can put restrictions on their sign in names to make it easier to identify who is refusing to join?  Also, can I adjust the time allowed for answering and remove the time portion of the competition so that the slower processors and slower readers also have a chance?  As many as 20% of our kids can't read the questions and answer choices in the time normally allowed in Kahoot.it games, so they just give up.

I would really like to use this tool more, but I need to find solutions to these two challenges in order to make it useful.  Thank you for any suggestions any of you may have.

I have found that kids who have phones can often play more easily on their phones than on computers and I have not had trouble with them using the phones for other purposes during Kahoot.it games.  That leaves any class laptops available for the kids who do not have phones.

Karen Robinette

Wasilla, Alaska

Prior to playing the game, you can turn on the random name generator. Students don’t like it because they can’t make their own names, but it takes out inappropriate names all together. It also gives you a count of how many are signed in before starting the game. If I know I have 24 students total that day and only 22 players are showing, I do a quick anonymous shout out like.. okay in order for all of us to play, we need 2 more! I go around and check the screens of the Chrome-books and phones. I do not make my whole class Kahoot or other game reviews optional. I make it known that it is a participation is expected. I don’t usually use Kahoot or other game reviews as grades, but other teachers do use it as a homework grade. Do you have GoGuardian? I would suggest IT to install it for your Chrome-books. You can add all your students emails per class, run your period schedule, and it monitors all of their screen work whether you’re viewing it live or not. I run the Kahoot game on my laptop with the Smartboard. I like to create a new tab on my desk PC with GoGuardian running in front of me so I can easily everyone’s screens when they’re doing Kahoot or game reviews online. I don’t have to walk around, I can run the Kahoot and monitor from the front. If I see someone go on YouTube and pretend to play the game, I simply shut down the YouTube page and send a message to tell them they have another chance to come back to the class review. I don’t let students use their cell phones if it’s something I want to collect data from. I tell them that if they choose to use the school’s WiFi on personal devices they are allowing the school to have access to their files. They don’t like that so they go on the Chromebooks. Cheers, Cheska

I couldn't agree more with you, Kahoot is a great way to keep students entertained and paying attention. I'm in college and some of my professors have even used Kahoot, so it works all around. I will definitely use it in my classroom one day. You can even add background sound to Kahoot while they answer questions I learned this from a classmate of mine who did a Kahoot for a presentation we had.

I was wondering what else can we do as educators to increase students engagement in science lessons, so I can use it in my classroom someday. Is there more technology apps to use or outdoor things to keep students learning but having fun in science. 

I agree! Kahoot is also a very fun way to engage students while reviewing content. I have been in a variety of settings in which Kahoot was used and in most if not all of them everyone was engaged and eager to participate.

I have found that although many of my students love Kahoot, they are beginning to get bored with it becuase it is played so much in their different classes. One new website that is similar to Kahoot is called Gimkit. This website is really cool and the students seem to get into it more becuase they are earning money as they play which they can then use to freeze each others screen or upgrade where they are earning more money for each correct question. It adds a level of competition that Kahoot doesn't have which seems to also add a level of engagement for many students. 

Hello! I agree that Kahoot is an excellent resource to engage your students! I have seen it used in a second grade classroom to a college level classroom. Another realy nice feature of Kahoot is that you can access previous Kahoots made by other educators by searching for different types of criteria. I am currently an in-service teacher and I have even observed my Cooperating Teacher use Kahoot to take a form of a grade as an assessment. She was able to take the students' usernames (which was their first and last initial) and generate reports on the student's results from the Kahoot.

Since I am an Early Childhood Major, none of my current students have cellphones during school so them being able to use a smart phone to access a Kahoot would be impossible. As much as I love Kahoot, we only have limited amounts of computers that are accessible to the class and cannot log all the students on to participate. We would however, do small groups possibly!

Kahoot is a lot of fun!  You are right when you say the students celebrate as a group.  I have found that this platform works well on both iPads and phones.  My students love to use this as a review tool during class for a test.  I have found that I can  also use it as a active pre test - which helps me see where the students stand prior to teaching a topic.  Live feed back is a great tool for knowing what parts of a topic need to be emphasized,

I used this in a 2nd grade classroom and it went extremely well! The students love being able to have their own devices (iPads) and seeing themselves on the scoreboard if they answered the questions correctly. They thought the music in the background motivated them to actually answer the question instead of simply clicking on an answer. I remember using this as a student myself and I always thought this was an 'out of the box' way to study! I love that not only are you able to create your own, but you have access to so many other Kahoots that have been made as well. 

I just finished up my studnet teaching and my studnets loved Kahoot anytime that we got the chance to use it however, sometimes we didn't have access to the Chromebooks therefore we couldn't use this as often as we wanted. However, another great reasrouce to use that keeps my studnets engaged is Teachers Tryscience on this website they have tons of online experiments that allow you to complete with my studnets. This is a great resource because sometimes we don't have access to all the materials we need to complete an experiment however, with it being on the website we are able to complete it successfully without needing any materials and my studnets are still fully engaged because sometimes they like listening to other people than their teachers teaching them. This website is a membership program however, if you don't want to pay for another webiste you can use the exploratorium which is very similar. This website also provides hands-on experinces to help our studnets learn about scientific principals. I have found that both of these websites help my students stay engaged during the whole lesson even more than when I am doing the experiment.  

Hi Denise! I completely agree with all of these tips. I especially resonate with giving students choices and teaching them self-monitoring skills. As someone who is studying to be a high school teacher, I have found that many students, myself included, need to have interest or choice in how the content is being taught otherwise learning will not happen. Self-assessing and determining for myself exactly what level of challenge I need or what topic I wish to explore really helps open up my mind and promotes critical thinking.