What is Kahoot?
What does Kahoot mean? It is a game-based learning platform. Creators create and display questions on the screen, and the students answer them with the help of a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Teachers can even create surveys and polls through this platform. Kids can play it in real-time with an ease zone. Kahoot also lays stress on the analysis of student’s performance through evaluation and assessments. It is not a typical traditional kind of assessment process. Through it, a Kahoot teacher can evaluate a fun-loving process through quizzes, games, polls, and surveys. What less to talk about, Kahoot! All students love it. It is used across the globe by multiple teachers and educators to make learning easy, joyous, and exciting. It is a free and very easy interface to use by all. VISION Kahoot vision is to:
Become a leader in the educational world. To explore the hidden talent and potential of everyone. Learning through play and connect.
MISSION Talking about its mission, let’s understand the goal:
Focus on making learning remarkable. To bring some changes in the field of education by aiding everyone to enjoy learning. Cause a shift from bookish knowledge to real-time fun learning. Foster connectivity and collaboration.
Features of Kahoot
There is a wide variety of features that Kahoot offers. Some of them are given below:
Creator features
You can create quizzes within a few minutes. Variety of templates available. You can make a great choice amongst them. Feature of importing questions. Explore and choose amongst 500M questions available in the question bank. Option to blend multiple Kahoots. Feature of inserting drawings in the iOS app. You can add youTube videos also into questions. Kahoot teachers can blend multiple questions into one form, i.e., quizzes, polls, puzzles, and slides. Option to choose high-quality images from the library.
Gameplay
To make learning interactive and interesting, games are designed through videos. Create games according to the potential of the students. They can play with ease at home or in the classroom. Students can play both individually or in groups. Quiz creators can also add multiple choice questions to the quiz. Attention is created through true/false questions. Users can keep time flexibility in mind according to the level of the questions. Quiz creators can attain feedback through polls. Assess the understanding of students learning through the option of puzzles. More content can be created and shown through slides.
Reports and analytics
Kahoot teachers can download reports in a spreadsheet. Provide access to the visibility of reports about the progress level of the class. Teachers can also share reports with the other teachers and the school administration. Individualized learning is possible through this app.
Sharing and Organization
Provide accessibility to share the games with other users of Kahoot. Share student-centered challenges with Microsoft Teams, Google Classrooms, and Apple Schoolwork. Feature of organizing Kahoot into different folders topic or subject-wise. It can be created and shared by many teachers amongst themselves.
Kahoot and the SAMR Model
SUBSTITUTION Differentiated from the traditional paper quiz, students take part in this quiz to answer the questions after completing a unit. AUGMENTATION It can be considered as a virtual substitute for the formative evaluation process. It has enhanced features of inserting videos and pictures during the quiz to get insights into the students’ knowledge, learning, and distinct learning styles. MODIFICATION Kahoot provides access to the pre-designed quizzes designed in advance by other people to enhance their knowledge and learning. REDEFINITION In Kahoot, innumerable participants can play games or participate in surveys in real-time. It was the SAMR model of Kahoot, which is very productive and well-defined. It’s time to cover the pros and cons of Kahoot. Let’s start with the benefits of Kahoot in the classroom.
Advantages of Kahoot
Kahoot is a very beneficial and outstanding tool in today’s virtual world of learning. Coming to the advantages, it is very helpful for learners. Given below are the in-depth advantages of Kahoot.
The first and foremost advantage of Kahoot is that it offers a great engagement from the students’ side. They enjoy it as it is a visualized and unique type of quiz. As the students’ interest level is high, the teachers can easily assess the understanding level through quizzes and polls. Kahoot has become very successful in reducing monotony and boredom. It is an energetic and lively platform. It can be used as a tool of assessment for the teachers. Kahoot has been successful in creating a positive environment among the students by creating motivation. It has increased the students’ performance due to an increase in the student’s attendance. It has effectively reduced students’ frustration levels and the stress about the fear of formative assessments in the traditional method.
These are the benefits of Kahoot that it has offered worldwide.
Disadvantages of Kahoot
Like the two sides of the coin, despite certain advantages of using Kahoot, it has some other disadvantages too. Let’s now understand its disadvantages or what we say CONS:
One of the significant disadvantages of Kahoot is that tracking the student’s progress level is a complex process. Because of multiple players connected to the same platform, there should be a strong WiFi connection. Else it would not work. Sometimes, background music can be distracting and stressful, which ultimately leads to the student’s diversion from its goal. As multiple players are connected, the level of competition can be increased, thus leading to stress and anger among kids. Sometimes, the availability of gadgets can also be an issue.
These were some hindrances in the path of Kahoot to become a successful leader in the educational world. Still, regardless of the cons, it can be considered an efficient and interactive learning tool for the students.
1. What does it help with?
Kahoot! What a remarkable learning tool that motivates students to learn through playing games interactively. It enhances student engagement. It serves as a user-friendly tool and also mobile and tablet-friendly. It possesses an easy-to-use interface where teachers and students can create games and quizzes in a few minutes.
2. What grade and age range?
It is available for grades K-12 with an age limit from 5-18 yrs.
3. What standards, if any, is it mapped to?
Its whole focus is on the HOW feature of learning rather than the WHAT feature of learning. The content in this platform is created with the alignment of the pedagogy and curriculum you teach. It has specific standards related to the content it offers. The users can create or explore games according to the aligned standards laid by it.
4. What is the pricing model?
The basic version of Kahoot is free. If you plan to opt for a premium one with more enhanced features, you will definitely have to pay a certain amount of fees.
5. Are there other services around it?
No, there are no other services centered around it. It is an independent platform to create, design, explore, and play games.
6. What makes Kahoot unique?
It is a unique platform because it enables fun-loving and lively learning. It allows discussions and maintains collaboration and motivation around the content based on education. It gives real-time experiences through visual backgrounds, music, game mechanics, and virtual moments that help learners find or explore their hidden innate talents and capabilities.
7. How is it designed for the user interface, user experience?
It has the two main key features which enhance its uniqueness:
Accessibility Inclusivity
It enables us to make the back-benchers become the first benchers. This transformation of students from shy to active, from boring to lively, is what Kahoot offers. Their main motive and mission are that technology should work as a platform to bring learners together by effective collaboration and to maximize their potential and resources effectively. It is a creativity-led business that is designed by creators or innovators of the virtual world.
8. What instructional design principles are at work here?
It is the first such platform or medium which aimed at creating a positive outlook by generating:
Collaboration Emotions Connections Bonding
These attributes are developed in no time with the help of technology. One of the effective and in-depth processes to use Kahoot in the classroom is to challenge the students to become a creator cum player. If this thought is set in the children’s minds, they will be encouraged to do research. This research will enhance their logical thinking, creativity, questioning skills, and presentation skills too. They will also become the facilitator. It fosters a socially engaged environment that enhances learning.
9. Is this core/supplemental/special needs/extracurricular/professional development or what?
It has diverse features that enable multiple uses worldwide. It is the core of the lesson as the teachers teach the whole content through games and activities. Students also create their learning on Kahoot. For many teachers, it acts as a supplement because they can take its support at the time of introducing a lesson or in between the lectures or discussions. It can also be used as an energizer to reduce boredom. As an extracurricular course, it can be used to give homework to students in the form of quizzes or puzzles to motivate them towards self-learning. Kahoot can also be responsible for professional development as the students learn to create their games by exploring and researching. They can share it with their family or friends also at home or even in the classrooms. They can use this productive learning by sharing their knowledge of understanding with their classmates too.
Conclusion
Kahoot! As the name suggests is a magical and game-changer tool in the field of education. It is no less than a reformer or facilitator in both the teacher’s and the student’s lives. It is a tool that is loved by all as it inculcates engagement, participation, motivation, and joy amongst the students through making learning fun. Kids can create funny Kahoot names. Someone has rightly said, “A classroom without Kahoot! is like a car without petrol or wheels”. Kahoot! has won the hearts of different educators and students. Its tagline should be “Explore and enter the world of dreams of new learning through fun.” Once addicted to it will create magic in the field of learning amongst students. Believe me, all educators and teachers should incorporate this into the teaching-learning process. Those who have not used it should go for it as it has reached millions of users’ hearts. Be it a teacher or a student, and everyone loves it for sure. It makes learning awesome and magical in a short period across the globe. It is the best learning game until now. Try it! You would surely love it. Visit Official Website
