Kahoot- a great review game for assessment or just that extra 5 minutes

Every month at our school staff meetings we have what is called a "Tech Slam" and teachers can share great "techy" things that they are doing in their classrooms.  Our wonderful gifted teacher shared KAHOOT with us this past week.  If you love plickers- you will love this website :)

Kahoot is an online quiz game similar to trivia at a  restaurant.  (The website calls it a "Game based blended learning and classroom response system" which uses a lot of buzz words- great for convincing admin you need devices to be able play!) Teachers can make their own multiple choice quizzes or choose a public quiz. Then the students sign into the quiz using a given code on their personal device (computer, phone, tablet, etc). Once everyone is signed in, questions will appear on the HOME computer (the teachers) and students answer on their own device. The actual choices do not appear on the students devices- just colors and shapes the correspond with what is on the main screen.  This can be tricky the first time (check out the picture below to see what it looks like)

The maker of the quiz can choose the time limit for each question- the default is 30 seconds.  After the time on each question runs out, a screen pops up that shows who got the question right and the point totals for the game thus far before moving on to the next question.

If you just have 5 minutes at the end of the class and you have enough devices in your room you can pull up a public quiz and have the students take it.

If you are more prepared and just want a fun new way to assess or review, teachers can make their own private quizzes and save them.  You can even add pictures or video! Another one of the best features is that not only can you see the results during the quiz, but the final results can be downloaded into an excel spreadsheet for ease in enter grades into your gradebook- just make sure you know your students usernames! I keep a file of each class.

I do not have devices in my room at all times, but if I plan ahead I can have students bring laptops or tablets from their classroom and we are all set.  For this reason, I will probably reserve the game for 5th and 6th grade only- until I get that class set of I-Pads I have been wanting (...in my dreams)!

I made a tempo vs dynamics quiz that you can check out.  There are also many other fun music quizzes already made up.  Mine is pretty simple- no pictures or video- but gives you a basic idea of how the game works.

(Yes, you and your students have to make a user name- but only once and it's free!  Some students even choose to take public quizzes at home and try to beat people from all over the world)

Have fun!