Learning Game Kahoot!
21.02.2019
MILLIONS OF PLAYERS IN FIVE YEARS – LEARNING GAME KAHOOT! IS TESTED IN TALLINN HEALTH CARE COLLEGE AND DIAK UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES
Learning game Kahoot! has a huge number of players all over the world. During Diaconia University of Applied Sciences (Diak) International week we got a chance to test the game in international learning environment.
We can learn from each other
In October 2018 Ms Õie Tähtla came to Finland and joined the Diak’s International Week 2018. Mrs Tiina Saarijärvi-Kivelä and Mrs Ulla Niittyinperä hosted her in Helsinki and Turku.
Ms Õie Tähtla’s profession is a lecturer at Tallinn Health Care College, in addition she is interpreting and translating. Mrs Tiina Saarijärvi-Kivelä and Mrs Ulla Niittyinperä are working as lecturer for Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) and interpreting in Turku Campus of DIAK.
Estonia have had digital services for a long time. Digital ID and mobile smart ID for example have multiple services for citizens. With them, Estonians can vote, do their tax return application, register new companies, follow children’s education in governmental eKool system and make digital signatures.
Finland have had development in distance learning and web-based learning and teaching. Recently created Campus Online offers selection of online courses by more than 20 Finnish universities of applied sciences (UAS). Students can select courses from another UAS free of charge and include these studies in their degree. CampusOnline.fi makes it possible for students to study courses 100% online.
Programme Kahoot! is game-based platform and learning game
Kahoot! was designed in Norwegian University of Technology and Science in 2013. With Kahoot! you can play, create, host quizzes in classrooms even on the go. Kahoot! reached more than 70 million unique monthly active users at the end of 2017. Since its launch, Kahoot! has been played in all countries in the world. You can use Kahoot for testing the learners, and in discussion mode in order to get to know their opinions and ideas. You need to use Kahoot.com to create games and Kahoot.it to play games. Kahoot! games related to sign language were found in American Sign Language (ASL) and fingerspelling practises.
Planning a game
We gave student groups assignment to plan and create Kahoot! with us. Students planned tasks for Kahoot! games. First they made a mindmap of the game, including the signs or alphabets of FinSL. Then they describe what age group their target group is and how they can use Kahoot! game in FinSL. Then students actually make the game: student groups used different materials for example filming short videos, photographing or linking to photos and made short questions about videos or photos.
Testing and playing the games
Tallinn tested the game 15th November 2018. The test group were Health promotion specialists, 1st year, all together 15 students. They were divided into groups and they created Kahoot! in the field of health promotion. After that, they played their Kahoot!’s and the students gave feedback about the game, about the process of creating it, about their emotions and their ideas and suggestions. Students played a grammar quiz with that group and they liked it. They told lecturer that Kahoot! was also used in other classes.
Turku tested the game 25th October 2018. Group of 35 sign language interpreting students made Kahoot! game for learning FinSL. Students needed only about a half hour to plan test game and one hour to create it in groups. That time included the time lecturers give instructions how to use Kahoot. After that, students were ready to test and play it. Student’s comments were inhilarating: It is is different. This is fun to learn words. Students also suggested lecturers can use Kahoot! to learn new words in language learning as teamwork.
Comments during the Kahoot.com planning were very positive about the solutions technical part. Students also liked the game, it was fun, nice and different, and a good way to learn words. Students also told us, that Kahoot! is easy to use, is fun to learn language and it is nice activity. Students think that Kahoot! is refreshing to mix up, and it was rewarding and different educational assignment. They also believe that Kahoot! is good way for teamwork in language learning. Students were surprised that it was so simple to use and make quizzes for Kahoot, and how it make students feel competitive and they want to try their best.
In Tallinn health promotion specialists commented on that Kahoot! was easy to use and easy to make your own game. Students really like Kahoot!, it was fun and the same time informative. Students describe that it was entertaining, interesting and educative. They also think that process was very simple. Students told that the creation of the game was new to them and they enjoyed it. First they thought it will be very difficult, but actually it was very simple. Students think that professors should use Kahoot! more often in lectures.
The most common questions from students were: How to share the game? How to play the game?How to edit the game?
Feedback and development suggestions
Students suggested that they should need more time to research assignment topics. They hope that they can use video links to Kahoot! in other way than You Tube-links. Students think that teachers could make Kahoot! games for students especially to learn new vocabulary. Students planned an technical development idea, that there should be an option to put pictures on the answer boxes. So you could choose your answers from pictures.
We gave also as lecturers answers for the feedback. We explained that it is possible to edit the game after when it is ready, and we think that it would be lovely if it was possible upload videos directly. Now you can only add the YouTube link, which means you have to upload the video there first. In Tallinn lecturer also suggested that during learning process nursing students can use photos of real life conditions in Kahoot!
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