Greetings, here is my A-1 project. I have done an analysis on Gamification in the classroom, focusing on three resources in particular – Kahoot, Quizzizz, and Quizalize. Each has their own unique qualities which I discuss.
Here is the link to the site… https://sway.office.com/MY1ZjFOU8LlyRWHA?ref=Link
Enjoy.
Hi Marlis,
I really appreciate the explanation on game-based learning and gamification of learning. In using tools such as Kahoot, I agree with you that there’s drawbacks since it allows for multiple choice type questions and answers, rather than deeper understanding of a topic. To help with deeper understanding, I think it really does take more work on the teacher’s side to design their class so that more elements of games are included, for example:
Progress mechanics (points/badges/leaderboards)
Narrative and characters
Player control
Immediate feedback
Opportunities for collaborative problem solving
Scaffolded learning with increasing challenges
Opportunities for mastery, and leveling up
Social connection
I think this is a great topic, something for all educators to be thinking about on how to motivate children to learn in class. Thanks!
Hi Marlis – great presentation! I have used Kahoot regularly and agree with Neil that kids enjoy it more for the fun factor and don’t necessarily use it to check their understanding. In your presentation, you stated that it can reduce anxiety for assessment, and in a classroom situation, I would agree but I tend to use it more for review because it’s limited to multiple choice and true/false. When we went online last April, I put a short quiz on Kahoot and gave my students the link. I received a lot of unexpected negative feedback from students and parents because the students were stressed out about the time limits on the Kahoot (they could do the quiz as many times as they wanted), so it was an interesting comparison between gamification in a social setting for a fun review and gamified assessment. For assessment, I tend toward Socrative, because you can have open-ended questions and you can use the settings to give automatic feedback for a review or none for a test. As you pointed out, one drawback for these platforms is that you still have to mark student answers because the app doesn’t do a good job. I have used this fairly recently to do collaborative tests, where I monitor their responses and give them a little bit of feedback as they progress through the test. For example, I let them know how many true/false questions they answered correctly, or give them opportunities to go back to multiple choice questions one time and change their answers). – Lori
Hi Lori, thank you for your comments.
These sites (Kahoot, Quizzizz, and others) are all evolving as they get more feedback from users and as technology improves. I have to admit that I have migrated away from Kahoot for the main reason that it’s the same kids winning all the time because they’re the fastest. I know that I need a fair bit of processing time myself, so I wouldn’t do well on those types of games. Quizzizz doesn’t have a time limit, allows you to put kids in random teams, and now allows you to enter open ended questions.
I find it interesting that your students get more stressed out doing the Kahoot at home, as I would have guessed the opposite. I would have thought that it would be less stressful without the comments and actions of their faster responding peers around them.
This also returns to Neill’s point… since students are so focused on getting the ‘right answer’ and winning rather than actually thinking about the concepts and reflecting on their actual learning. how can we redirect their focus so that they still enjoy the gamification factor, but also focus on the learning element and reflect more on why they got wrong answers?
Hi Neil
There are so many facets to this topic. Game design has much to do with how much actual learning goes on. I am unfamiliar with Prodigy, but it sounds like a lot of other so-called educational games that just randomly insert questions in order to progress, but the actual game itself is unrelated to the content. As you said, the questions are more of an annoyance rather than a learning experience. I am a fan of game-based learning that actually incorporates the concepts and skills being taught. An example of this is at http://www.biomanbio.com which has a variety of games to do with biology. Snurfle island is a good one because it incorporates natural selection – you have to design a creature to survive the conditions of different islands. In this case, the game involves the concepts being taught, and is a much more effective learning experience.
The benefits of gamification are the motivating factors that can be used to engage students that have developed short attention spans and have grown up with a low tolerance for down-time. Gamification is becoming more and more prevalent in society – look at Snapchat or Instagram and video filters for an example. Students are glued to their phones, so gamification is tapping into their addiction and trying to redirect their attention (however briefly) to the curricular content.
I agree that the assessment is very limited in its usefulness, but for myself, I use it as a quick snapshot of understanding, or as an introduction to a new concept, or perhaps just as a change of pace on a Friday afternoon when we’re all fried from a hard week. I prefer Quizzizz over Kahoot simply because students can be put into teams and go at their own pace rather than constantly fight the clock, and it equalizes the playing field a bit more.
Hi Marlis,
I appreciate explaining the difference between gamification and game-based learning.
I have been noticing that the popularity of gamification with students has grown a lot in the last few years. My grade 8 and 9 students constantly ask to play Kahoot and sometimes we do but I am finding this form of assessment doesn’t get the results I desire for checking on content understanding. Most students don’t take the time to think about the questions before choosing an answer as they want to keep up with everyone else and most of the questions have to be short and confined to multiple choice that it doesn’t really get them thinking but more so regurgitating information. I also find that when I try to talk about the correct answers afterwards, students are too eager for the next question of the game to listen to my elaboration.
I find game-based learning has better results for teaching such as your example of Monopoly because they are theme focused. Monopoly puts students in the world of real estate and gives them time to develop strategy and learn from experience.
Prodigy (https://www.prodigygame.com) is an online game referred by my daughter’s teacher to play to help with her math skills. It is a role playing game that gets the user to answer math questions in order to fight in battles. I found that, just like my students using Kahoot, she would want to rush through the questions to get back to the game. If she asked for help on a question I would take that opportunity to walk her through the math problem but I could tell she was impatient to just get to the answer and continue playing.
There will always be an addictive quality of any game (educational or not) and for this reason I am very hesitant on using digital game content in the classroom.
Hello Wynn
For myself, I have only used it as a supplemental resource for review, reinforcement, etc. and I have used it as a snapshot assessment tool. I don’t think it could be used as a full learning management system as the types of questions you can use are limited (mostly objective, short answer or multiple choice), but then I haven’t looked into it that extensively, and there are multiple capabilities that I haven’t tried yet. It also depends upon the type of course and assignments you wish to use. Of course, things are always developing and changing and new features are added as technology grows.
Very cool website! I have not yet heard about this one yet.
It seems like it tries to go beyond Kahoot and almost brand itself as a course management system. Having used it, would you say that the platform allows one to potentially run their entire course or content on it?
Hello Wynn
For myself, I have only used it as a supplemental resource for review, reinforcement, etc. and I have used it as a snapshot assessment tool. I don’t think it could be used as a full learning management system as the types of questions you can use are limited (mostly objective, short answer or multiple choice), but then I haven’t looked into it that extensively, and there are multiple capabilities that I haven’t tried yet. It also depends upon the type of course and assignments you wish to use. Of course, things are always developing and changing and new features are added as technology grows.