I teach social studies (history, economics) at O’Neill Junior-Senior High School in Nebraska. About 5 years ago, I learned about Kahoot! in a training session at our school and I’ve used it in my classes ever since.
I think the Kahoot! motto sums it all up perfectly – make learning awesome. I love the interaction and excitement, the enthusiasm it creates. The format is second to none. My students love to compete, get creative with their nicknames and clap along to the music. The podium of course creates suspense and students enjoy the recognition at the end of the game.
Student-paced challenges help review content at home
I’ve been using Kahoot! extensively to introduce new topics and review content for unit tests. Now that everyone is learning from home, instead of playing live games in class, we started using student-paced challenges – and they work great! Students like them because they also maintain the Kahoot! competitiveness, plus this game mode is very efficient to get information out in these difficult times.
When I create a challenge, I post a link to it on Canvas, the LMS we’re using, and students play at their pace when we’re reviewing a unit or a chapter.
Engaging the local community in a trivia competition
Recently, one of my former students, who is now an art teacher, posted on Facebook that she wanted me to make some trivia for people here in O’Neill to play as a fun activity to engage in at home with families. I talked to my colleague Mike Peterson and we both thought Kahoot! challenges would be a great way to facilitate this. I create the kahoots and he posts them on our school’s Facebook page. I usually make 5-6 kahoots a week.
More and more people play each game! I’ve been thrilled with the really positive response I got from the public. People post comments on Facebook, and since our town is quite small with only 4000 people, the word is spreading fast both on social media and word of mouth. The other day I got a delivery, and the driver said he loved my Kahoot! trivia challenges!
Topics ranging from “selfie kahoots” to local history and geography trivia
Since I’m a history teacher, naturally some of the first challenges were history-oriented. As the idea came from a school alumnus, we started with school trivia. Then it turned into local history – people like topics that revolve around things that they remember from their lives. Now more and more topic requests are coming in. For example, this week, a student suggested I create a challenge about places that have the same name in different locations. These ideas are really inspiring!
Right now I’m also working on a kahoot for our class of 2020 that I will put out in May. It will be a “How well do you know the seniors?” selfie kahoot. I think it’s important that we still celebrate these young people even if we can’t be in school together. Each student is submitting a question or two about themselves for other people to answer – so it’s an interesting collaborative project, too.
Join Gary’s trivia challenge of the week and try this game mode with your students and community!
