Kahoot! Your students will love it ( in-class technology use)

This past May I had a pleasure to attend a workshop sponsored by Flagship grant at the University of Arizona organized by CERCLL. There we learned some tricks of the trade from great colleagues.

Kahoot is one of fun tools that you could use in classroom if you have a computer and a screen. It is a given these days that students have smartphones, isn't it? Go ahead and to create your account so that you could put together kahoots customized to your needs. Once you log in, you should see this 

Once you are done with your questions, you may play the game with your students. In order for that to happen, you will need to generate a game pin that you project for everyone to see on a big screen.

Ask your students to enter kahoot.it on their devices. They will see a window where they will enter game pin. Next step is them entering their name. Once they have done that, they will show up on your projected screen (see pic on the right:student Graham and student TeachL2memo have entered both the pin and identified themselves).
Once everybody is in, it is time to start the game.

The game has sound and shows a leader at the end. It is a fun tool for a warm-up activity. It is also extremely competitive, and might motivate students to prepare better for playing it (you could manipulate the content and ways in which you pose your questions. 

 Here is a screen shot of one of my questions ( a screen that everybody sees. There are 20 seconds to answer it. Once everybody done, it will move on the next question. How do students vote? On their screens they only see four shapes and colors, and they have to choose one. It takes some doing, but students love it. I plan to do it probably once a chapter next year, so that students get to prepare for it and do not get tired of it. 

 

Feel free to share your ideas and tools in the comments.

Technology you need: computer hooked up to the projector, Internet access, wi-fi

Technology students need: any device that could connect to the Internet