Four Things You Might Not Know about… Kahoot!
Welcome to “Four Things You Might Not Know About,” a series of short posts on edtech tools and ways they can be used.
If you teach in K–12 schools, you’ll likely have a Pavlovian response to this song:
Kahoot! is a game-based assessment platform. It’s known for its quiz games, although it’s used for more than just final test reviews. It can also be used as a part of professional development, for example, or for smaller formative assessments.
As functionality varies between Kahoot! plans, this post will focus only on things you can do with a free plan. If you have a paid plan through your school, there’ll be way more to discover! Cue the music as we reveal four things you might not know….
1️⃣ You Can Add Alt Text to Media
All Kahoot! plans allow access to Unsplash and GIPHY, two libraries that let you search for photos and animated GIFs, respectively. Adding media to questions can be fun, but where does that leave students using screen readers? You can add alt text!
Once you’ve added your media, look for the “i” icon on the thumbnail. When you click it, you’ll see a pop-up with a field to add your alt text. This description of your media will make it so that students using screen readers or who have limited bandwidth can hear or see what the media is.
2️⃣ You Can Use Sorting to Find “High-Quality” Kahoots
Kahoot! has a fairly robust search engine. You can find it at the top of the Discovery page, which highlights topical ready-made content. That said, you can do more than just search for kahoots: you can also filter and sort the results.
The first filter is on by default; this filter prevents displaying only Premium content. This sadly does not exclude paid content, but you’ll see a text overlay on results that require a purchase. Once you’ve added your filters, you’ll get a list of kahoots, which you can then sort by “highest quality” — an algorithmically created list that accounts for play time and favorites.
3️⃣ You Can Also Filter by Language
If you’re teaching students another language, you can use Kahoot!’s filters to find kahoots in your target language. For example, looking for kahoots in español provides Spanish-language kahoots. While many of these are vocabulary focused, not all of them are. This gives students an opportunity to interact with authentic sources.
Students can also create kahoots. You could have them create their own Spanish-language quizzes, for example, and share them with their classmates. Note that you need to be careful of privacy concerns if you try this. For younger students, kahoots will be private by default, but if they’re older, you’ll need to tell them to make their kahoots private and share them with you.
4️⃣ You — and Your Students — Can Use Bitmoji
Bitmoji is a platform where you create and customize a cartoon avatar to look like yourself. If you’ve ever heard of a “Bitmoji classroom,” this is the Bitmoji in question. After you create a Bitmoji, you can share it via text, social media and Kahoot!
Click your Kahoot! profile settings, then edit your profile picture. You’ll see an option to connect with Bitmoji. If you already have one, you can share it on Kahoot!. Otherwise, you can connect your account, then create a new Bitmoji. For more information, check out this guide.
About the blogger:
Jesika Brooks
Jesika Brooks is an editor and bookworm with a Master of Library and Information Science degree. A lifelong learner herself, she has always been fascinated by the intersection of education and technology. She edits the Tech-Based Teaching blog (and always wants to hear from new voices!).
