Part 3: Launch and Reflect

In doing Kahoot with my students, I have a couple of key takeaways. The first is that when students play Kahoot, they only have the colors/shapes in front of them, so they need to be constantly referring to the teacher's screen to match up the answers with the choices on their iPads. For my ELLs, this is adding one more skill to the mix of trying to participate in the initial activity. 
I also don't love how Kahoot rewards based on time responses, I would rather my students take their time in thinking about their responses before becoming "clicker happy" and just clicking any answer, hoping it's correct, and then moving on. 
However, I love the engagement that Kahoot provides for the students to engage in a meaningful activity that could be used to assess after a lesson or even at the end of a unit. The students are constantly involved in the learning and engaging with an activity that is both fun and is designed to meet standards and lesson objectives. 

Kahoot 

Overall, Kahoot went well in my classroom.  Students are used to doing Kahoot in the Library, for counseling and will need to familiarize themselves more with it for when they move up.  There were many positives. It was nice that depending on the age and academic level of my students, I could extend the time and/or eliminate choice options for the students.  In addition, the game format made it easier for the students to take risks when learning. With this being said,

Kahoot had some negatives as well.  I teach in an 8:1:1 classroom.  No matter how many times we practice and remind students about the expectations, they still yell out the answers during the Kahoot because they are excited about the game format.  I also noticed that some students were not waiting for the question to be read and either choosing their favorite color because they wanted to be first or when they saw their friends move to click the answer right after I finished reading the choice, they would as well.  Yes, I know these are minor issues that can be fixed over time with repetition and practice, but I figured they were worth noting for this project.

Before launching Kahoot with my class for math, we reviewed some expectations and etiquette. This was the first time that many of them had used Kahoot. They stated that they were more familiar with a similar platform called Blooket. I used Kahoot quite a bit in previous years with upper elementary students to review material and I remember them loving it. I also remember Kahoot appearing more user friendly "back in the day" but when I took the time to explore, it looks like it has more to offer now. I never used to rely on others' Kahoot games that were already created, but why reinvent the wheel? There are tons of great Kahoot games that are ready to be used. After searching through some, I found a bunch of great games that were already created by other users. 

I used one that focused on equivalent fractions for our math practice time. The kids loved that it was a change from their typical SeeSaw or IXL activity. I think they really enjoyed that it was a class game vs an independent activity. This allowed for friendly competition in our room. The kids were asking how to create their own games to play with one another during their recess time. I'd say it was pretty successful!