In cahoots with Kahoot!

  With smartphones becoming an everyday part of both students and teachers lives, why not take advantage of all of the free applications that can be downloaded and used in an educational manor in the classroom? During my senior year, AP classes were a drag, but what I looked forward to each day was using the free app called Kahoot.

  

  What is Kahoot? Kahoot is a simple and free app that creates a "Kahoot" aka a fun learning activity composed of a series of multiple choice questions. Images, videos, graphs, and more can be added to those questions to add to the fun. Once the teacher creates a "kahoot"(set of multiple choice questions and answers) it is assigned a specific game pin. All the students have to do is download the free app on their smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc. then type in their teachers game pin. As the question pops up on the teachers big screen, it does the same on each student's device. They choose and submit which answer they think is correct, then a scoreboard/leader board shows who answered quickest and accurately as well as displaying the correct answer. The more correct answers the more points! 

  This creates a friendly competition within the classroom and even encourages discussion about the topic. It also gets the information into students heads, helping them to remember it a little better. Students get so caught up with trying to get the highest score and answer quickly, that they don't even feel like they are learning! It's pure fun and students will want to have daily kahoots. These work great for reviewing for tests and quizzes and also can be very helpful when learning/remembering vocabulary. Since it allows teachers to create such individualized kahoots, they can be specialized for literally any topic. Overall, a great app to use in any classroom or age group that has access to any devices with internet connection!