LIS 568 - Kahoot!

New Tech Tool: Kahoot!

Kaitlyn Casper

LIS 568 - Week 3: 6/9-6/15

This week, I decided to check out Kahoot! Kahoot! is something that I have heard of before, but I do not have a lot of experience with it. Thinking back, I believe I participated in a Kahoot! game only once, and I've never organized one myself. I know that lots of people my age have more experience with Kahoot! and love using it for both educational and recreational purposes. I have also heard some school librarians say that they've used it with their students, and it made for very interactive, energetic, and fun lessons!

First Impressions

My first impression of the Kahoot! website was that it is slightly overwhelming to view--there are so many different colors, text, and images to navigate. I decided to start by exploring the top tabs since it says "work" and "school." Upon exploring this area, I found that Kahoot! offers priced plans to use their technology. I ended up doing a quick Google search to see if Kahoot! also offers free usage, and it apparently does offer free use with limited features. I think this is pretty fair, though I was interested to see what kind of limitations came with the free version.

Exploring Kahoot!

To make an account, I was able to log in with my Gmail account, which is a feature that I always find convenient! I started by creating a new quiz, and I was given the option of starting from a blank canvas or having Kahoot! generate a quiz for me with the help of A.I. This is an interesting feature, but I don't see myself using it a lot. I would probably want to make a quiz myself, unless I was very short on time. There are also pre-made Kahoot! templates to choose from, which I think is really helpful, considering that the A.I. tool is very limited and you can't really do much for free. Starting from a blank template also seems to be pretty easy and straightforward; all you really need to do is type in the answers and questions, and add photos if you like. You can very easily make questions with however many answers that you'd like, or you can easily make true/false questions as well. 

There were some features that were blocked behind a paywall. Pretty much any type of quiz except single-answer multiple choice, true/false, and open-ended answers required a membership. I feel like most people wouldn't really need these features since the plain template is fairly customizable. If you just wanted to do a basic quiz game, the free version is totally fine. However, the free version did have a limit on the amount of players that you could have on one game. The cheaper subscription option ($7.99 per month, or $3.99 on sale) allows 50 players, while the more expensive option ($14.99 per month, or $12.99 on sale) allows up to 200. I Googled how many players you could involve for free, and it looks like it's only 10. If I were to use this in my school library more than once, I might consider buying the cheaper option. However, not every school or librarian would have the funds to do this, so the paywall could be a deterrent to some.

Is Kahoot! a useful educational tool?

Overall, it seems like Kahoot! is a pretty cool tool! The free version seems pretty accessible, though the biggest con is the number of players that you can have on one game. I think it could still be worth it in some cases, like if you are playing it with a smaller group or you have the funds to purchase the cheaper subscription. It isn't super expensive, so it could be worth it if you want to use Kahoot! a number of times throughout the year. I think it is a great educational tool because it encourages very active and interactive studying, and it's just plain fun! It is also worth mentioning that you can join as a player from a laptop, so phones are not required to play. Since many students have Chromebooks or other laptops now, this could be an awesome resource!

Kahoot! homepage.

Blank Kahoot! template.