Activity #7: Why I Have a Kahoot Chip On My Shoulder

It's confession time, I harbor a massive grudge against Kahoot.

Did you gasp? Choke on your water? Question if you even want to continue reading?

Well, I urge you to continue, because there is some Kahoot redemption further down the page.

Here's the deal, basically I suffer from "fun class jealousy." Not sure if you have heard of it, but basically I turn into an attention seeking middle-schooler every time I enter my classroom. Honestly, it's an ugly character trait, but one I believe ultimately aids me in my teaching. My desire to have the "fun class that still learns tons" basically pushes me to extremes. Last year we blocked our ELA and Math classes at Highview. This meant, I was always sending my students to math or from math.

You know how kids talk? Well, this is what I would hear:

"Ughh... I can't wait to go to math, we're playing Kahoot!!!" 

"Ms. O, can we have fun in class today and play Kahoot?" 

"Why don't we do Kahoot more?" 

Any normal teacher would have had some wise words about a time and place for everything (thanks Byrds for this song); I however, am not just any teacher. So I would take that "fun class jealousy" character trait/flaw and work extra hard at showing my students we could have fun WITHOUT Kahoot!

Successful? TBD

This year, I plan to work hard on getting rid of my "fun class jealousy" character issue and just simply take these interactive data collection tools for what they are.

The Kahoot that I have created is all about me! No joke, it is the ONLY Kahoot I did in Social Studies last year (and you thought I was being dramatic). To access it go to kahoot.it and enter the code: 524859.

In 6th grade social studies this year Tara and I are planning to make use of Socrative on a regular basis with our daily access to computers. This activity really helped me learn more about Socrative and I am excited to use it!

I created a basic quiz about the Dakota and Ojibwe as a way to play around with the program and discovered a feature that I actually really appreciate based on an issue another teacher had at Highview last year. Without divulging deep dark secrets we had a teacher who was a technology guru and basically ran her class online. When one of her students ran into repeated computer trouble (think, not using it for its intended purposes), her privileges were removed. This presented itself to be a big problem for the teacher and student. What I discovered (quite accidentally actually) is that you can download a pdf version of your Socrative quizzes. I see this as being helpful in times when you need to send advanced homework for a kid going on vacation, when you have students without computer access, etc. It may not be used often, but it is actually a really nice additional tool. You can see a pdf version of the quiz I created here.

Now, on to the ways I appreciate the technology of Socrative:

1. I like the "explanation" section of the quiz so that students can see additional information about the correct answer.
2. I love the easy export of data.
3. I like the space race game, particularly when you can hide the teams so students don't know who they are playing for.
4. I like the formal format - this is big for me. I want my data collection to feel formal and I appreciate the fact that Socrative feels like a serious activity, unlike some other tools... cough, cough, kahoot, cough. 

Truly, the world of data collection that feels like more of a game than a test is a great way of engaging students through all aspects of their learning. I appreciate the tools like Kahoot, Socrative, and Poll Everywhere for this reason!