Parental meeting with gamification and kahoot

Yesterday we, our school, had a parental meeting. Some of my colleagues had prepared their parts (in their classrooms) with PowerPoints, the one I saw had tons of information in it. Others hadn't done a thing.

Because we have started this 1:1 pedagogy, where each student has a laptop, I thought I should show the parents literally what this new pedagogy could be. And the best way, in my mind, was to use Gamification and flip my information with a Kahoot quiz.

When I listen to my colleagues I also realized it wasn't any idea to even think about talk about my solution, I'm so much more into the future that it probably only would scare them :P ...except some of the female teachers in the practical nurse training area, they were a bit jealous they hadn't thought about doing the same!

Using Kahoot! on a parental meeting was a huge success! 

The parents review of the meeting was 5 stars.

I started to tell the parents that I'm convinced youth of today learn in a complete different way than we did (back in the days) and this way (Kahoot!) is one of the better ways to flip the theoretical parts into a learning process. Also, I'm sure they learn lots of things while they play games, for example Minecraft.

How did I do?

Well, before I started I made some preparations:

I had make sure I would have my class/parents in a computer classroom.

I logged in to the computers and set them up (kahoot.it)

When the meeting started.

Some of the parents wasn't used with computers, but it was easy to click with mouse on one of four very large buttons. The first questions wasn't any important, they were about me and I took the chance to talk about me, presentation.

I thought maybe 3-4 parents would participiate but all of them (15) joined me. There were no competition as I usually have in classes, but after 5-6 questions and when approx 10 of them had answered the left overs started to feel the pressure ;)

When we was talking about the length of the education, how many points they need and more I could inform the parents I had them to do some math during the meeting, the unintentional learning during the parental meeting :)

Result

I got the whole bunch of parents both active and involved in the meeting. There was no chance to fall asleep or not listen. There was no room to misunderstand the important parts as grades, courses, attendance and so on.

I also got the parents on my side to use games, like Minecraft, in education.

I hijacked a colleague's lesson

One colleague of mine also has this "PCs and Peripherals" course, he's actually the one who usually has them but this year both classes of IBT-students have the course at the same time and you can't clone him. Therefor I got the other one, the one he didn't want (another town), and the one he do teach is the class I'm the classteacher of.

Many of my colleagues tell me I'm doing wrong when I'm stick to my Masterplan so last Friday I started to doubt on myself: am I nuts or am I brilliant?

Anyhow, I also needed inspiration what to teach and besides, as a classteacher I also wanted to be sure my class was doing alright.

So I attended his class. 

I sat there and enjoyed, listened and took notes. 

Listened, questioned, took notes on and on.

Suddenly when I looked around me I realized I'm the only one taking notes and probably the only one listening (!). One student was sleeping at his desk and sleeping so hard you couldn't woke him up. The other ones were doing something else: Facebook, newspapers, comic sites and you name it. 

This teacher has lots and lots of knowledge and experience but man, his lessons are boring. After 30 min I was very frustrated over the situation, students without interest and a teacher who continue without changing his didactics.

I had to wake them up!

I mean, really?

It was an EPIC FAIL!

So I asked my colleague if I could borrow like 10 min to give them a wake up call, and he gave me green light. I'm not an expert, not even a 'real' teacher, but at least my students stay awake...

And now dear readers, now we're coming to the part I don't know if I'd be proud of or if I'd feel ashamed of.

I f**king hijacked his course!

I took one of my Kahoot! quizzes and that's always an excellent option to trigger the learning process. And what an excellent tool Kahoot! really is! Man, you should have been there... All in a sudden they were

• Learning
• Discussion
• Active
• Problemsolving

The result was all beyond my expectations! In two (2) minutes the whole class attention was focused on me, I was in the spotlight and I had all chances in the world to bring out the message, the learning, the education. 

Pwned!

One quiz of 22 questions became a second quiz with 20 questions. The class wanted more and more. They didn't want to have breaks, all they wanted was to play and learn more.

And now when I looked into my colleagues eyes, which was all black, I understood: I hijacked not even the lesson but the whole course. Man, he's pissed :P ...but I gave him something to think about, I sure did. I couldn't talk with him on Friday but today he came to me with two things:

1. He has started with some Kahoot! quizzes
2. I'm not allowed to attend his classes anymore...

My own course?

Well according to my Masterplan I'm doing great! Especially after I've attended my colleagues lessons... What my other colleagues think about the problem of gaming during class I don't have that problem. 

No, they are allowed to play one game and do challenges inside that one only game. During my lessons there's something happens all the time, if we have nothing to do we just don't sit still and practice waiting, we have Minecraft.

This week in my course we've had lots of discussions, talked much about what skills they already have, what we should focus on. They had a mission to think about what a PC is and how it works, write it down on approx three A4 (with pictures and writing rules). 

My theory lessons all starts with the quiz gaming plattform Kahoot! and usually ends in massive discussions and some googling to prove I'm wrong :D What came to Minecraft logic gates was easy peasy so I had to improvise a harder quest: make a digital clock with redstones!

The guys in my course didn't want to leave class because they was sooo close to a breakthrou with the redstones. They've realized two important things 

• Learning is fun.
• Learning is multiplayer.

...and you have no time (or need) to sleep on my lessons...

Kahoot!

I've come across this awesome tool to use in classroom. Best of all, we get rid of the cellphone problem. And when I've test it in class all focus is on the teacher and his/hers lesson, all are active and interested! The students also want to do it over and over.

The gameiciation part is so awesome! Everyone wants to participate, everyone wants to win and the way to to win, is to learn. There's lots of discussions about questions I've dropped out, am I right or wrong? They have started to google to prove I'm wrong :)

Was it hard to use and learn?

Nope..

So how does it work??

FIrst you create a teacheraccount here Kahoot, getkahoot.com och log in. This is also where you start all your quizes..

First time you create an account, after that just log in.

This is my welcome view. In the menu I can see all my material (me) and also those quiz which are public (free to use). 

Push the question mark to start a new quiz. First thing, give it a name.

Now, all you do is start to fill your quiz. Question 1, what question do you want to put out? You can add a picture to give the students a hint of what you want or to make it more fun. I usually set the time to 60 sec but I wonder if it's enough with the default, 30 sec. 

When my quiz is ready I push the green button down to the right. And after that I put a summary to it, how hard it is and if I want it to be private or public (default). And you can edit later.

I can add a picture or a YouTube clip which the students see while everyone log in to the quiz. 

Wee! Ready! I can start, launch it immediately by pressing the PLAY NOW button. And after that, LAUNCH! 

My students surf away to

KAHOOT.IT

and log into with a PIN code (4591).

This is what the students see on their cellphones (or computer) and all they do is to enter the PIN code.

And to this game it was 4591.

I try to tell them to use their real names because there's a chance I can save the results later.

They give their name, and now the cellphone is locked :) while they wait, all they see is maybe the YouTube clip you added to the quiz. At my smartboard, on their units all they see is "You're In!"

On the teachers smartboard the player one by one log in and when I have all in, I START NOW.

Still and only at my smartboard/screen the first question pops up.

After some seconds the question, with answers (color and symbol) pop up.

This is what the students see.

After everyone has answered you get to this summary and you have time to discuss the question further more if you want. Or just push NEXT.

Scoreboard, and with more students only the five highest rankings are shown. 

But, there's only one winner! 

All can put a score on your quiz and you can either run the quiz again or save the results, Excel file.

If I save the Excel-file I get a summary of the quiz, the participants and the results.

In the front view I can choose one of my quiz and edit it if I'm not satisfied. And save it when I'm ready.