Engaging, Game-Based Fun with Kahoot- Save Results in Google Drive

Some of our teachers use Kahoot with students for a fun, interactive class game.  You can add your own questions, project the game from your free teacher account, and have students join your session on an iPad. You can include photos or videos with your questions. Students earn points for answering correctly and quickly. Or you can turn off the point system to create a non-competitive game, gather feedback, or use for a formative assessment.

A newer feature of Kahoot is that you can save results or answers from each student, either by downloading them or by saving the directly to your Google Drive. (I recommend renaming the file right away, and filing it in a folder so you can find it easily later- it may automatically name it something random you would have a hard time searching later!) To save your results, watch for this screen at the end of the Kahoot activity, and click the Download results option or the Google Drive icon.

If you're new to Kahoot, head on over to their site and sign up. You can play an introductory game to familiarize yourself with how it works. 

If you have used Kahoot with your students, please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Flocabulary: Video Resource for Teachers

Have you tried Flocabulary? As teachers search for different media to share or introduce concepts to students, some may be interested in what Common Sense Graphite refers to as "Schoolhouse Rock meets Tupac" in a "delightful hip-hop-based platform." Definitely engaging for students, I've seen several teachers in our building projecting Flocabulary videos when addressing a concept or CCSS standard.

It is a paid subscription service; District 97 has purchased a subscription. If you are a D97 teacher, search for an email from Sheri Lenzo where she provides the specific link you need to set up an account. (New teachers, I was the one who sent the email to you at the beginning of this year.) If you cannot find the email, let me know.

Check out Common Sense Media's Graphite review (scroll to the bottom section) to see what other educators think.

For those of you who have used Flocabulary, what have you found beneficial?

Popplet: More than just a mind map

A lot of our younger students have been using the Popplet app lately:

Second grade goal setting Popplet (photo blurred for privacy!)

Second grade independent work on RI standards for main idea and details

This app is so simple to use that it is great for any age and does lend itself very well for acting as a virtual graphic organizer. A great fit is the main idea and details concept you see above, but there are many more uses if you think beyond the web format. These could include:

• timeline
• summarize story events in chronological order
• historical events
• family tree 
• book characters
• historical figures
• listing steps in a process 
• science experiment
• math problem
• snap photos with the camera to include with each step!
• basic brainstorming
• organizing words
• synonyms
• antonyms
• Spanish words or phrases
• virtually any visual you'd like students to create with text and/or images!

And since our district has access to Britannica ImageQuest, our students have an enormous resource for license-free images to add to their Popplets from their iPads. 

If you combine Popplet with another app for some app-smashing, you can really expand on what students get out of it. Some examples in which students can insert their Popplet, when students save their Popplet as an image (JPEG) file, based on our current 1st-5th app list:

How have you used or how would you use Popplet with your students?