In the old days, if you wanted to play a game in the class, you made it yourself with notecards and ingenuity. But then Kahoot! came along and saved the day! Games were fun and quick. It would also light up a person's screen red if they got the wrong answer, so you always knew if the room was dark who missed it. Great fun!
Then it started to stagnate. Other sites took up the call, but to varying degrees of success and many of those went out of business or reverted to a pay model that was too prohibitive for a single teacher just trying to make their way in the universe.
Then came Blooket and changed everything again. Students love Blooket and I love how I can take a Quizlet and easily move it to Blooket. Kahoot! faced extinction. Today, if you say, "Take out your computers and go to Kahoot," you'll likely be met with protests from students who want Blooket and the one in the back who keeps asking for a Gimkit.
Kahoot! heard the call and has answered. If you haven't tried Kahoot in a while, it's time to see what is new. Most of the new activities are marked as premium, but I've been using some of the premium services for a while now and they have not stopped giving it for free.
Let's look at the two biggest game changers first:
Marble Race - In this game, speed doesn't matter. Every correct question earns the student another marble. The students start with at least one marble. Once all questions are completed, the marbles are dropped and the first three to make it down the course win. It's fun for those who are slower to answer and the randomness gives everyone a chance to be a winner. This works great for short Kahoots.
Robot Run - The students work together to escape the robot. In between sessions, they have to escape the electrified areas. Takes about ten minutes to play and works best on extremely large Kahoots (otherwise they will get bored with the same questions over and over again).
The others are worth playing around with as well. Don't have student computers? No problem with the Classic: Unplugged. Want to just give them time to work at their pace and get some review questions in? No problem with the Chill Art. Give it a whirl! Variety is the spice of life, as they say, so mix it up in your classroom some.
