Classroom Jeopardy belongs to the Millennials.
For Gen Z students and younger, Kahoot is the educational game standard.
During Link2Practice, I have seen students very engaged with a classroom Kahoot. The ones I’ve seen are implemented like class rewards, usually as a fun quiz alternative at the end of a unit.
Kahoot was easy to sign up for. Even though I selected the basic educator’s package, I have not been asked for credentials or identification. When teaching on call, I’ll likely have multiple district emails. With Kahoot, I could make a unique Kahoot account for each district I am assigned to, streamlining short-notice Kahoots.
Kahoot also helps educators short on time. You can access other users’ Kahoots by searching for keywords. For example, I could search up Of Mice and Men if my students were reading that work. While it might not turn up exactly what I was looking for, it’s good in a pinch.
Making my own Kahoot was fairly simple. The format is created for you, and all I had to do was fill in the questions where I wanted them. I made a small Kahoot on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which took me all of 15 minutes from signing up for Kahoot.
I enjoyed how Kahoot suggests Creative Commons licensed images. The premium option opens Getty, but Unsplash is available for free. The suggested images were applicable, too. As I built a brief Kahoot on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Kahoot even suggested a screengrab of Harrison Ford as Bladerunner’s Deckard Shaw.
Although Kahoot allows you to upload image files from your computer, students will likely focus on the prompts. Having automatically suggested images saves the time of finding, uploading, and somehow crediting an image that likely won’t receive much attention.
While Kahoot isn’t a tool I see myself using frequently, it could be useful to shake up a rainy November afternoon class, or as a periodic reward for students. Even in a pinch, Kahoot lets me utilize another educator’s work, or, given five or ten minutes, put one together.
As for replacing Jeopardy, I’ll take Kahoot for 500.