Skip to main content

Kahoot!

I have been taking a look at Kahoot!, a phone/tablet-friendly app which allows teachers to create multi-choice quizzes, polls and surveys.

The Edshelf site describes it thus:

Using a simple and speedy ‘drag n drop’ creation tool, educators create and manage ‘Kahoots’ in the form of quizzes, surveys or polls related to the topics they're teaching; either asking quick questions ‘on the go’ to get feedback or opinion, or more in depth questions for formative assessment. Content can be shared with learners, colleagues or fellow educators globally.

Educators launch their Kahoots on the screen at the front of the class to their learners, who join through their personal devices. In real-time and with gaming elements to increase engagement and motivation, learners answer questions through their personal devices. Educators get an overview of the current knowledge levels of everyone in the room, and can adapt their teaching accordingly.

I had a go with the multi-choice quiz function. You create a free account and can immediately create your quiz. Each question can have four answers. You can add pictures to make your quiz more attractive. You can set a time limit for each question, from 5 seconds to two minutes. Questions can get points if you choose this option. Once it is finished, you can then get students to sign up and take part in the quiz.

The result is colourful and bold, well suited to mobile devices, accompanied by some music to add drama.

On the plus side, it is free and you can create a quiz very quickly, making it available to a class who can compete on it very easily. You can also tailor exercises to the abilities and tastes of your class. The competitive elee element will no doubt appeal to some classes and teachers. But we are, when it comes down to it, talking about a multi-choice test here. For linguists, the Hot Potato package of tasks provides more sophistication and range, even if not every game works perfectly on an iPad. A pay site such as Textivate may be less flashy, but offers a far greater variety of authoring options. Taskmagic 3, although a significant investment, has a much graeter "fun" factor, if that is what you are looking for.

I have to say that my first reaction is that this is a triumph of style over substance. If the teacher can construct clever quizzes, then it can be worthwhile.


Comments

  1. Hey Steve, I'm Co-founder & Lead designer of Kahoot! - thanks for reviewing our platform, hugely appreciated in helping us spread the word.

    It really is something you have to experience in class, with your students to get the full experience. Our users love the fact that with Kahoot! they have everyone in their classroom completely engaged in what they're teaching.

    Here are some of the videos our users have shared with us of the fun, social and enchanting atmosphere Kahoot! creates in the classroom: http://blog.getkahoot.com/tagged/video - would love to hear your experiences when/if you have a chance to try it with your students.

    You're right about constructing clever quizzes too. We have an ever growing library of public quizzes created by our users globally to pick from too. And, because Kahoot! is a platform for everyone asking great question, students love creating their own quizzes to play back with classmates and thus sharing their deeper knowledge on specific subjects. See a case study here: http://blog.getkahoot.com/post/66973663345/case-study-implementing-the-kahoot-pedagogy-at

    We're very new, and what you see today really is just the beginning - there's a lot more to come! So stay tuned, and happy Kahooting!

    Thanks

    Jamie Brooker

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the natural order hypothesis?

The natural order hypothesis states that all learners acquire the grammatical structures of a language in roughly the same order. This applies to both first and second language acquisition. This order is not dependent on the ease with which a particular language feature can be taught; in English, some features, such as third-person "-s" ("he runs") are easy to teach in a classroom setting, but are not typically fully acquired until the later stages of language acquisition. The hypothesis was based on morpheme studies by Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, which found that certain morphemes were predictably learned before others during the course of second language acquisition. The hypothesis was picked up by Stephen Krashen who incorporated it in his very well known input model of second language learning. Furthermore, according to the natural order hypothesis, the order of acquisition remains the same regardless of the teacher's explicit instruction; in other words,

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,