Thursday, November 16, 2017

Technology Spotlight: Kahoot

I'm so excited to be leading a guiding coalition on educational technology. I will be working with the same group of educators each month and introducing different tools they can use in their classrooms. This month I focused on assessment. I introduced Edulastic for my intermediate teachers and Kahoot for my primary teachers.

Since I've already done a post about Edulastic, I'd thought I would focus this post on Kahoot.
You can see my step by step guide below for Kahoot that walks you through how to create an account, creating quizzes, and viewing reports.

When using Kahoot, one thing to keep in mind is that you must wait for all users to enter the game room before you begin a game. Another thing to consider when choosing Kahoot as a tool is the fact that the answer choices that your students choose from are projected on the screen and the students only have the color choices on their screen. This may be good for primary students who need a simpler format when using a Web tool like this. The students are all answering the same question at the same time, so when they have answered a question they must wait for the others to answer before moving on. Again this may be good for primary grade levels where the teacher wants more control, but your intermediate students may get bored while waiting. Intermediate students may benefit from Kahoot if given a chance to create their own Kahoot for the class since the platform for creating quizzes is very easy to use.

Another modification for primary students, especially when first using Kahoot, have students complete the assessment as a small group or with a partner, ie. one device per 2-4 students.


Image result for kahoot logo

Check back soon for my post on Quizizz so you can see which one you like best!

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Guided Reading Tracker Using Google Forms

One thing that I have never been good at is keeping notes for my guided reading groups. I meet with my groups on a daily basis, but I just never found a way that works for me when it comes to taking notes. One year I even set up this beautiful binder full of note-taking pages and struggled to use it.

Enter this year, I decided there had to be a way I could quickly use my Chromebook to jot down information. I use my Chromebook for my lesson plans so it is sitting right there open on my table, so what could I use... Google Forms!

While I am not super excited about the spreadsheet for my responses (I need to play around with some of the add-ons), I am being very consistent on taking quick notes about who was present in the group that day, what text we read, any activities the students did, and any notes about the students.

Below is a step-by-step guide to setting up a Google Form to be used as a note taker for groups.


Enjoy!