How to Run a Virtual Kahoot! in Your Virtual Classroom

Like the rest of the educators of the world, I'm diving into the virtual classroom this week like a medic on the beaches of Normandy. The idea of "synchronous and asynchronous digital learning environments" from my education technology grad classes a decade ago were cute add-ons in my brick-and-mortar classroom that were nice, but could still largely be ignored by most educators on any given day.

(In case your wondering and haven't Googled it yet, "synchronous vs asynchronous digital learning environments" is the difference between something like a discussion board and commenting, where everyone does work at different times, versus videoconferencing or chat, where all the students are working at the same time, meeting with the teacher.)

But you're really just here because...

You want to run a Kahoot! in your fancy new virtual classroom.

Here's a brief clip of how that looked in MY virtual classroom today between 32 of our 8th graders and the two other teachers on my team.

View this post on Instagram

We had an epic 36 question interdisciplinary @getkahoot Google Hangout today, and it was so fun! Go 8th grade! 32 our students jumped on to play! Logistics: Start the meeting and present on one device, video yourself on the other. While you're in the "lobby" allow kids to talk, have them mute once the game begins. And as always, precorrect behaviors! "This is beginning recorded and the chat transcript will be saved," was a good deterrent for a few kids! No fuss - just fun! #ffsdsteam #fergflorunited

A post shared by Making Math Mindsets (@mrcbaker4math) on Mar 20, 2020 at 1:30pm PDT

I used Google Meet today, but the steps for accomplishing this wouldn't be much different if you are using ZOOM.

1. Start a meeting either using your Google Calendar by setting up an event, or by going to meet.google.com and clicking on "Start a meeting." Then enter a nickname for your meeting. Whatever you want.

2. In a separate window, go to getkahoot.com and grab the Kahoot! you want to play. I was trying to up the engagement as much as possible, so I made one that had questions from all of our content areas. (Bigger was better as far as I was concerned here, so I wanted to get my 8th grade co-teachers excited about it, too)

3. Go back to your Meeting tab and click on "Present." When the box opens that asks you how you want to share your screen, click on "Application Window" and choose that tab you in which you have the Kahoot! all ready to go.

4. Now its time to enter your own meeting. In a separate tab (or on a separate device, if you're worried about your device lagging or freezing), go to meet.google.com and enter your meeting nickname or use the meeting URL in the sharing info

5. Share your meeting URL with students!

6. Once students join, run the Kahoot! from that tab or 2nd device as you normally would in the "regular" classroom.

7. Have fun!