Kahoot: Engagement and Gameplay in Classrooms

Talking About Everything with Harry Hawk.

Traditional Education is Passive

Sitting still at your desk “absorbing” knowledge is passive. Often the only “active” part of a classroom is distracting siren call of smart phones, and watches.

Cahoot – usually used in plural they’re in cahoots. He was robbed by a man who was in cahoots with the bartender. – Merriam-Webster

Let’s Play A Game In Class

It might seem “wrong” (and even a bit odd) that gameplay is a solution that can make classrooms more active & reduce distractions.

Kahoot! has reached 1 billion cumulative participating players on the platform – Jamie Brooker

With 40 million monthly active users, Kahoot! (a learning company) is happy to be “in cahoots” with students and their teachers to change the way people learn.

Gameplay is Active Learning – Harry Hawk

19th Century Learning

CUNY’s Distinguished Professor Cathy N Davidson (link) has often noted that our current educational system was created in the mid 1800’s to train the children of farmers to become efficient factory workers.

This is why our educational system “insists” on work done alone, while sitting quietly at a desk without help from anyone else – Harry Hawk

21st Century Learners

Today’s work place is full of collaboration, and self directed learning in teams with various areas of domain expertise solving problems and creating processes that that span teams, departments, and even multiple businesses.

Today workers are expected to band together and solve problems with sustainable multi-stakeholder solutions – Harry Hawk

Kahoot! Knows Games Engage Students

Jamie spoke about a number of game elements that were built into Kahoot! to purposely and positively impact classroom dynamics.

Kahoot! encourages players to “look up”, creating an engaged, collaborative and loud learning space – Jamie Brooker

One Game Leads To Another – Which Leads to Learning

Learning is almost always more than a single lesson. Similarly, a properly deployed Kahoot! involves multiple games in the same day or over a number of days or weeks, etc.

Gaming Improves Your Classroom

Kahoot! encourages students to “look up” — and while offering some light competition students are also encourages to speak with each other, and to even help each other.

Embedding your next video into a game can make it more engaging – Harry Hawk

Kahoot!’s pedagogy encourages learners to make their own games in groups to challenge their peers with, encouraging collaboration and creativity – Jamie Brooker

Making your own game can be a game in itself – Jamie Brooker

Working Together: Gaming + Video

If you already have video lectures, short educational films, or just traditional blackboard lectures they can co-exist with Kahoot!

Storytelling is Synthesis

Teachers know how hard it is to encourage and coach students so they can pull together a set of facts and personal insight while create an original narrative or research paper. Storytelling as found in game design naturally requires synthesis as “natural by-product” of game development.

At their core gaming and video are both environments for storytelling. – Harry Hawk

We tested our gaming environment “Kahoot!” in schools, to prove the engagement model before launching – Jamie Brooker

Please Listen: In this conversation with Jamie Brooker the Chief Creative Officer and Founder of Kahoot! as he explains how Kahoot! has grown to offer over 15 Million publicly accessible games and supports 40 Million active monthly users.

Life Long Learning

Learning isn’t only for young students – Harry Hawk

Businesses that use Kahoot! will enable us to keep the product free to our educational users – Jamie Brooker

If you are a business or communications professional try using Kahoot!. Play a game of Kahoot! with any internal team meeting; if your mission is externally focused create Kahoot! games around critical topics.

A fun learning based game could be part of your onboarding process – Harry Hawk

Educational Engagement could be part of your Inbound Marketing Program – Harry Hawk

Some of the largest businesses in the world are already using Kahoot! at the highest Level to improve training, professional development and internal communications – Jamie Brooker

Links:

Kahoot! Make Learning Awesome

Jamie Brooker on Twitter