Teaching and Learning Tools

Kahoot!

Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform, popularly used in many schools and institutions. The application is known for its multiple-choice quizzes that allow students to play together in real time. Kahoot! also launched a new "Jumble" game where students have to arrange 4 choices in the correct order. A new "Challenge" mode allows students to play it off the class time.

(Teacher) Create or browse a game: https://kahoot.com/

(Student )Play a game: https://kahoot.it/

Key Features, Limitations, and Suggestion

Kahoot! is a "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) game which means students must have a smartphone or a computer device, at least a shared device, in order to play. Good things are that when everyone brings a smartphone to school, Kahoot! will have them use their devices for learning purposes with fun rather than chatting or social networking. However, not everyone has an opportunity to own a device. Read through this article to find a solution.
Only the teacher needs an account. Students only enter the game pin and their nicknames to join. That makes it easy but will cause a problem in collecting points unless some strategies are applied. Furthermore, students tend to compete in creating weird usernames which wastes too much joining time. And when the joining process takes too long, the system will mark it as "inactive" and stop it.
Question and choices appear only on the teacher device, which is connected to a projector or a TV. Only buttons appear on the student devices, see the above picture. There are two reasons for this: (1) to minimize load on the server, internet, and the device, making the game responses faster which is a brilliant idea and (2) bring all attention to the teacher's screen. Because of this, everything must be made clear enough to be visible from the distance.
The faster you response, the more points you get. Therefore connection speed does matter. Sometimes a student gets more points not because of his/her fast thinking but his/her internet signal quality. So, points from the game should NOT be accumulated summatively.
The average thinking time is 20 seconds but it can be set between 5 and 120 seconds each question. Therefore the question must not be too difficult or require many processes of thinking. Remember that this game is for fun. You should not have your students solve a partial derivative or complex integral problem within 20 seconds.
The game is good for correct misconceptions or a trivia quiz with a twist.
After each question, the teacher can switch a screen (without closing the game) to explain or give more information but do not leave the game idle for too long or the system will terminate the session.
Results are saved in the system and can be downloaded (into an Excel spreadsheet format) or saved into a Google Drive for further analysis.

Quizizz

Similar to Kahoot! but the game is not synchronous. Once started, students play individually on their own device.

Try it: https://quizizz.com/

Both Kahoot! and Quizizz offer such a good learning environment but there are some differences described below.

Plickers

Students don't have a device or they are not allowed to use? No problem.

Plickers (Paper + Clickers) is similar to Kahoot! but only the teacher needs a smartphone with camera and internet. Each student uses a code printed on a piece of paper to play.

Create and manage questions: https://www.plickers.com/

Key Features, Limitations, and Suggestion

It can be used for attendance checking (use a blank question, just scan for presented cards).
There is a process to create questions, create a class, and add questions into the class. This is a little bit more complex comparing with Kahoot!
In practical, this game can be played anywhere with internet connection, in a garden or during a camping, with or without a projector (use verbal or a flipped chart).
Plickers cards can be printed from the website. The standard-size card has 2 codes per an A4 paper. The printing uses a lot of ink so plan for it.
The maximum number of students per session is either 40 or 63 based on the card size selection.
Students present their cards to the teacher for scanning with their selected choice (A, B, C, or D) on the top. They can change their answers (need to be rescanned) in which the last answer will be counted.
Recently any mobile camera is capable for scanning students' codes from distance without moving around too much. However, in a big class a scanning process can take time.

ZipGrade

ZipGrade uses a smartphone camera to scan and grade multiple-choice answer sheets , similar to an expensive answer sheet scanner but much more cost effective.

A free version offers 100 scans per month while a paid version ($6.99 a year) has unlimited scans.

Detail: www.zipgrade.com

Vizia

You can add questions and polls at keypoints on a YouTube video using this third-party app, Vizia.

Try it: https://vizia.co/

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