Kahoot: Engagement and Gameplay in Classrooms Academic Innovation & Disruption

Traditional Education is Passive

Sitting still at your desk "absorbing" knowledge is passive. Often the only "active" part of a classroom is distracting siren call of smart phones, and watches.

Cahoot - usually used in plural they're in cahoots.  He was robbed by a man who was in cahoots with the bartender. - Merriam-Webster

Let's Play A Game In Class





It might seem "wrong" (and even a bit odd) that gameplay is a solution that can make classrooms more active & reduce distractions.

Kahoot! has reached 1 billion cumulative participating players on the platform - Jamie Brooker

With 40 million monthly active users, Kahoot! (a learning company) is happy to be "in cahoots" with students and their teachers to change the way people learn.

Gameplay is Active Learning - Harry Hawk

19th Century Learning

CUNY's Distinguished Professor Cathy N Davidson (link) has often noted that our current educational system was created in the mid 1800's to train the children of farmers to become efficient factory workers.

This is why our educational system "insists" on work done alone, while sitting quietly at a desk without help from anyone else - Harry Hawk

21st Century Learners

Today's work place is full of collaboration, and self directed learning in teams with various areas of domain expertise solving problems and creating processes that that span teams, departments, and even multiple businesses.

Today workers are expected to band together and solve problems with sustainable multi-stakeholder solutions - Harry Hawk 

Kahoot! Knows Games Engage Students

Jamie spoke about a number of game elements that were built into Kahoot! to purposely and positively impact classroom dynamics.

Kahoot! encourages players to “look up”, creating an engaged, collaborative and loud learning space - Jamie Brooker



Jamie Brooker Founder and CCO of Kahoot!

One Game Leads To Another - Which Leads to Learning

Learning is almost always more than a single lesson. Similarly, a properly deployed Kahoot! involves multiple games in the same day or over a number of days or weeks, etc. 

Gaming Improves Your Classroom

Kahoot! encourages students to "look up" -- and while offering some light competition students are also encourages to speak with each other, and to even help each other.

Embedding your next video into a game can make it more engaging - Harry Hawk



Kahoot!'s pedagogy encourages learners to make their own games in groups to challenge their peers with, encouraging collaboration and creativity - Jamie Brooker



Making your own game can be a game in itself - Jamie Brooker





Working Together: Gaming + Video

If you already have video lectures, short educational films, or just traditional blackboard lectures they can co-exist with Kahoot!
















Storytelling is Synthesis

Teachers know how hard it is to encourage and coach students so they can pull together a set of facts and personal insight while create an original narrative or research paper. Storytelling as found in game design naturally requires synthesis as "natural by-product" of game development.

At their core gaming and video are both environments for storytelling...