Fun and Games

When I did my visits to intermediate classes earlier this term, I saw Kahoot in action at Lincoln High School. The maths teacher was using it as a hook into a  new unit, and it really engaged the students there. 

Kahoot is a quiz/game-based student response system. It can be used purely for fun (search for 'logo' quizzes), for exposure to a topic, or for assessment (pre-, post- or anywhere in between). 

I couldn't help but introduce the concept to my students. We started with a logo quiz to try and get used to the way it works. I'm lucky enough to have just about one device per student in my classroom, but we get creative with groups if we need to. The students all managed to log into the game easily enough, and they've been begging for more Kahoots ever since. 

It hasn't all been fun and games though. Sometimes our network slows down so much that we can't access the Kahoot site easily. Sometimes students lose their connection mid-game. Each time, we've practiced resilience and patience, then tried to come up with a workable solution.

I've created some custom Kahoots now, and the best one was the one I did to finish off our current unit of study in Chinese. It was a great way to find out who had picked up the language we'd been learning about, and who hadn't!