Last week, I created and reviewed the learning tool Kahoot! I was a big fan of the program. I felt that it was an excellent tool for engaging students, especially when used as a review tool. After the assignment time closed, I received an email with the scores from the students that took the quiz. To see more in-depth information (who got each individual question correct, for instance), I would have to purchase the pro or premium account. If I decided to use this program in class, I would most likely purchase the pro account for $3/month. I think it would be worth it for the feedback aspect.
Before I decide on a certain tool though, I always like to investigate what else is out there. The two other tools that I found the most promising was quizizz (this is a tool that is used by a middle school science teacher that I follow on social media) and Nearpod.
I will start with Nearpod. It does not align as closely with Kahoot! It is not a quiz tool, it is designed to be a full lesson presentation. It moves through slides and in those slides can be content, either written or a video, and a number of different questions for feedback. They have multiple choice questions, but they also have matching, fill-in-the-blank, and open-ended questions which I think is great. The most interesting feature I found in this tool is that one of the slides options was a collaborative slide that resembled a cork board where students can each submit a response and they all appear on the screen together. The major downside of this tool is that it does not have many free pre-made presentations, so to use this takes the time to go through and create your own Nearpod. I think if you are teaching one class (like, all 7th grade life science) and plan to teach for multiple years, it would be worth putting in the time to create presentations from scratch because it is a good option for engagement and feedback, but it would probably end up being used sparingly just because of the time commitment to building it out. I am adding a link to an example of one of the free pre-created options in Nearpod.
Next, I started to look into Quizzizz. Like Kahoot!, there were tons of resources that have been created and made accessible by other teachers so you would be able to use the resource even if it was a last minute decision that you need to give a quick quiz to get feedback about what parts students understood and what they did not. I played one of the games. I found that the scoring system was very similar to Kahoot!, but I found the format less engaging. The difference in assigning the work is that I was able to link my Google classroom to Quizizz and I'm hoping the tool automatically sent out invites to take the quiz that I found on Food Webs and was based on a short video through Crash Course Kids (which I also linked because life science class was probably quite a while ago for most of us). Finding the quiz did not take very much time because of the search bar and assigning the quiz took less than a minute after I linked my Google classroom to the site. In this respect, it was perhaps slightly more user friendly than Kahoot.
Without receiving the feedback from this tool (which might change my mind), I think I prefer the Kahoot! tool. I think that the format of Kahoot! reminded me more of the fun trivia game format which makes it more engaging in my opinion. I thought the insertion of the memes in Quizizz was a fun feature, though. I think both provide a good resource for teachers to give students a fun way to test their recall and review what they've learned. I think both have the potential to be a formative assessment, giving teachers an idea of where students are and what they might be lacking so teachers can adjust their instruction and cater any review sessions. So, ultimately, I think deciding which one to use comes down to personal preference (although, I reserve the right to change my mind after people take it).
Before I decide on a certain tool though, I always like to investigate what else is out there. The two other tools that I found the most promising was quizizz (this is a tool that is used by a middle school science teacher that I follow on social media) and Nearpod.
I will start with Nearpod. It does not align as closely with Kahoot! It is not a quiz tool, it is designed to be a full lesson presentation. It moves through slides and in those slides can be content, either written or a video, and a number of different questions for feedback. They have multiple choice questions, but they also have matching, fill-in-the-blank, and open-ended questions which I think is great. The most interesting feature I found in this tool is that one of the slides options was a collaborative slide that resembled a cork board where students can each submit a response and they all appear on the screen together. The major downside of this tool is that it does not have many free pre-made presentations, so to use this takes the time to go through and create your own Nearpod. I think if you are teaching one class (like, all 7th grade life science) and plan to teach for multiple years, it would be worth putting in the time to create presentations from scratch because it is a good option for engagement and feedback, but it would probably end up being used sparingly just because of the time commitment to building it out. I am adding a link to an example of one of the free pre-created options in Nearpod.
Next, I started to look into Quizzizz. Like Kahoot!, there were tons of resources that have been created and made accessible by other teachers so you would be able to use the resource even if it was a last minute decision that you need to give a quick quiz to get feedback about what parts students understood and what they did not. I played one of the games. I found that the scoring system was very similar to Kahoot!, but I found the format less engaging. The difference in assigning the work is that I was able to link my Google classroom to Quizizz and I'm hoping the tool automatically sent out invites to take the quiz that I found on Food Webs and was based on a short video through Crash Course Kids (which I also linked because life science class was probably quite a while ago for most of us). Finding the quiz did not take very much time because of the search bar and assigning the quiz took less than a minute after I linked my Google classroom to the site. In this respect, it was perhaps slightly more user friendly than Kahoot.
Without receiving the feedback from this tool (which might change my mind), I think I prefer the Kahoot! tool. I think that the format of Kahoot! reminded me more of the fun trivia game format which makes it more engaging in my opinion. I thought the insertion of the memes in Quizizz was a fun feature, though. I think both provide a good resource for teachers to give students a fun way to test their recall and review what they've learned. I think both have the potential to be a formative assessment, giving teachers an idea of where students are and what they might be lacking so teachers can adjust their instruction and cater any review sessions. So, ultimately, I think deciding which one to use comes down to personal preference (although, I reserve the right to change my mind after people take it).
Good comparison of tools. You represented the features and also broke down your decision making which will help others to do the same. Always reserve the right to change your mind...tools change, needs change, situations change - as well we know.
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