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Technology Mediated Learning Analysis

Project Overview

Project Description

'Parse' a learning technology - what is its underlying theory of learning and how is this reflected by the way it works in practice? When discussing the theory of learning read and cite (with links) the theorist works (Work 1) of other course participants.

Icon for Kahoot! - Analysis of a Game-Based Formative Assessment Student Response System

Kahoot! - Analysis of a Game-Based Formative Assessment Student Response System

The Educational Challenge

getkahoot.com

 

As many teachers know, assessment can be a struggle especially if it is done according to best practices. Henry Roediger, a professor of psychology at Washington University, recommends teachers giving students plenty of little assessments. Paper and pencil assessments, such as these, can be very non-engaging and can get monotonous over the year. Offering alternatives that provide a fun atmosphere and some gamification can be great at breaking this monotony.

With formative assessment and gamification being pushed more and more in the classroom, many applications are being created to help teachers gain more formative data in a fun way in order to better gauge where their students are at in terms of understanding. Kahoot! as well as many other formative assessment tools (i.e. Socrative, Zaption, Google Forms, etc.) are becoming an ever larger part of a teacher’s toolbox. Kahoot! remains one of the more utilized and loved formative assessment tools as of late due to its gaming nature and its fun competitiveness.

'Parsing the Educational Technology

The 'parsing' of this technology is relatively simple compared to most other educational technologies. The technology basically does what the developers say it does. Relying on simple mechanics, the game is very reliable and easy to use. To help explain the power of Kahoot!, here is a video from the company's creator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2JbY979WUg.

As stated in the video, a teacher would choose a publicly created Kahoot! (made by other teachers) or create one themselves. It is created like a multiple choice quiz or test which the teacher would choose which answer(s) are considered correct as well as how much time is required to answer the question. The questions themselves can be in the form of words, mathematics problems, videos, or even a picture. The faster that the questions are answered, the more points the players get. Once the Kahoot! quiz is made, you can play the quiz by clicking on the "Play" button. The teacher's screen must be projected in front of the room so that students can see it. It is also necessary that each student has access to the Internet on either their phones or any other device. When the teacher clicks "Play", a game pin will show up on the screen. Students will have to go to the website: kahoot.it where they are asked the game pin. Once the students input the game pin, they will be connected to that particular teacher's Kahoot! quiz. Students will be asked their nickname to be used in the game. Teachers have the option to click and get rid of any student's name that they see as inappropriate (which happens often at first). From there, once the students are all connected to the Kahoot! quiz, the teacher can start the game.

Kahoot! is best used for any age of students that are comfortable with computers and navigating the Internet.

The Underlying Learning Theory

Although a relatively simple technology, there are a good number of theories that are utilized with Kahoot!. These include the following:

  • Formative assessment
  • Competition
  • Gamification

Formative Assessment

It turns out that teachers are not great at reading students’ body language. In fact, even if teachers are good at it, students are oftentimes even better at faking certain body language. Formative assessment involves the assessing of students as they are learning as opposed at the end. Technically, teachers should be teaching based on the understanding of the students. If a large percentage of students are not understanding the material, a teacher should augment their teaching accordingly. This shows the power of formative assessments. The best formative assessment involves anonymity which thumbs up, sideways, or down does not offer. Also, the feedback needs to be instant and number-based. The basic premise of formative assessment is that test scores should not be a surprise and teachers are not mind readers. Not yet anyway.

Competition in the Classroom

The use of competition in education has been shown to generally be negative for all, but the highest achieving of students. Being that Kahoot!, by its nature, is competitive can be a cause for concern unless the atmosphere of the classroom is set up in such a way where self-esteem remains in tact. Students knowing that the teachers cares about them is vitally important when it comes to learning this way.

Gamification

In its simplest terms, gamification involves making a human-driven system more enjoyable and fun through the use of a game. In the case of Kahoot!, it would involve making the formative assessment more fun through its fun environment, music, race against the clock, and competition.

Although not a new concept, with the expansion of education technology, gamification has been making a comeback. For me, thoughts of Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail pop in my head as popular, early examples of gamification in education.

The main elements of gamification that can be harnessed for educational purposes are progression, investment, and cascading information theory. Kahoot! primarily focuses on the progression and the investment elements as the cascading information theory is not generally obtained from formative assessment. The progression element involves the visualization of success incrementally. Kahoot! utilizes this through the use of points. The investment element involves the achievement from the earning of public recognition for completing the questions correctly.

The Technology in Practice

Kahoot! Screenshot

 

The technology basically does what the developers say it does. Relying on simple mechanics, the game is very reliable and easy to use.

I have used this technology a lot in the past couple years. Since I have used it, the only major problems that I find is the game can have some connection lagging at times. This is independent of the Wi-Fi network where I am using the website through. Kahoot! does a nice job of notifying users when this is occurring by have a message pop up on the screen saying that they are experiencing some issues with speed of the site. This comes in handy when you are planning on using the site, but do not want the tech issues.

The ease of use is one of its strongest selling points as well. I have introduced and trained several faculty members on using Kahoot! and find that it is much easier for them than most other educational technologies. The fact that users can share Kahoot! games publicly creates a large amount of different games of almost every subject so users can use them in their classroom without ever having to create their own. Creating your own Kahoot! games can be cumbersome, but well worth it for the final result.

Critical Reflection

Screenshot of Kahoot! quizzes and how they organized

 

As described previously, Kahoot! is extremely easy to use. After one use, many users feel they are comfortable enough to use the program on their own. Since my students have seen it used in so many classes, many of them know how to use it in a case substitute teacher is expected to use one in a lesson.

It also provides great data at the end of the game to the teacher. It can be downloaded as an Excel file with breakdowns of each student, each questions, and overall class statistics. This can be used amazingly for formative assessments.

Students can also create Kahoot! games and be put in control of the classroom as a creator rather than passively playing the games. This can help students focus on what they view as important and have some fun at the same time.

Weaknesses of Kahoot! is that it is answer-focused and multiple choice. The focus on answers limits the questions you can create to many recall or understanding questions rather than application questions. The maximum time limit is 2 minutes for each question so any real sustained thinking questions will be harder to pull off.

The fact that the questions have to be multiple choice also limits the depth of the questioning that can take place.

Another glaring weakness is the fact that you cannot opt out of the competition aspect of the game. The questions are based on time meaning that the faster you answer a question, the more points you get. It would be nice to be able to turn that option off so students can think through a question and not get penalized for it.

Another disadvantage is that students can use nicknames. If a student is using a different name, it can be tough to track how that individual student is doing.

Screenshot of editing screen

Conclusions and Recommendations

If you are looking for a simple, easy to use, “well-liked by students” way of formatively assessing students on lower level Bloom’s taxonomy skills, it does not get much better than Kahoot!. I recommend to any teacher who has a good rapport with their students, a strong Internet connection, and students that all have devices with good Internet connection.

Beyond the strengths of Kahoot!, glaring weaknesses include the fact that it cannot be used for discovery learning. This is one of the strengths of gamification in education. If the learning could take place while the game is played, students might be able to better understand the material. However, Kahoot!'s main strength is in its reviewing and formative assessment after the initial learning has taken place.

I highly recommend it as a way of keeping your classroom fresh and mixing up review sessions from the standard same old review. Another recommendation is that for every content-related Kahoot! that is played, try to play a fun Kahoot! as well. The publicly shared Kahoot! quizzes have everything from traditional school subjects to fun quizzes on Disney characters. Students really enjoy the break up from only content to have a little fun with non-school related material. This also allows for students to see their teacher as having a little fun if the teacher plays along with them during the "fun" Kahoot! quiz.


References

  1. NPR - http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/19/439472033/homework-a-new-users-guide
  2. Duke CIT - https://cit.duke.edu/blog/2015/07/kahoot-as-formative-assessment/
  3. Snarky Teacher - thesnarkyschoolteacher.com/blog/tech-tuesday-woohoo-kahoot-ten-fun-ways-to-use-kahoot-in-your-classroom
  4. Formative Assessments - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formative_assessment
  5. "Kahoot! is searching for talent to impact education globally". Kahoot! Blog. Kahoot AS. 16 June 2014. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  6. Wang, Alf Inge (12 November 2014). "The wear out effect of a game-based student response system" (PDF). Computers & Education. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.11.004. ISSN 0360-1315.
  7. "Kahoot! - Android Apps on Google Play". Google Play. Google Inc. 9 June 2014. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
  8. Underdal, Anlaug Gårdsrud; Sunde, Marthe Thorine (5 September 2014). Investigating QoE in a Cloud-Based Classroom Response System (PDF) (Thesis). Retrieved 3 December 2014.
  9. Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior.  New York: Plenum, 1985.
  10. Johnson, David W., and Roger T. Johnson.  Cooperation and Competition:  Theory and Research.  Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Co., 1989.
  11. Kohn, Alfie.  No Contest: The Case Against Competition.  Rev. ed.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
  12. Kohn, Alfie.  Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
  13. Lepper, Mark R., and David Greene, eds.  The Hidden Costs of Rewards: New Perspectives on the Psychology of Human Motivation.  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978.