What is Kahoot?
You can use Kahoot for synchronous or asynchronous classes as well as in a blended learning environment. You can use Kahoot to support workplace learning, eLearning design, or courses your design to host on your website. Using Kahoot is a great way to ensure that your training is both engaging and effective, regardless of whether it is instructor-led or self-paced.
Creating eLearning in Kahoot
I have played with colleagues at work, and recently, I took a closer look at it to see if I could use it to create an eLearning module for a workplace setting. To test my idea, I played around with a scenario to address bad supervisors in the workplace. You can create content for directive learning and some types of scenario-based eLearning in Kahoot. Kahoot allows creators to add a question type called presentation slides when building quizzes.
Using Presentation Slides.
With presentation slides, you can provide introductions, direct instruction, lecture material, and explanations that the learner needs to understand the module. Kahoot offers ten different slide layouts. You can change the background color, import PowerPoint slides or images. I also used presentation slides to create the feedback and reports. I discussed this further down in this post.
This slide serves as the introduction to the mini-course I created. Altogether, you can add up to 100 questions in each Kahoot. If you use presentation slides in place of some of those questions, you should have enough room to build content for your course. Kahoot limits the number of characters a content creator can add to the question types I tested. I worked around the 250 maximum character limit by creating text-heavy slides outside Kahoot then uploading the slides to the platform.
Creating Scenario-based eLearning in Kahoot.
I set out to see if I could create any scenario-based eLearning with Kahoot. I found that I could not generate branching scenarios with Kahoot. Thankfully, branching scenarios are not the only approach to scenario-based eLearning. I was able to create mini-scenarios and linear scenarios. It is also possible to develop traditional eLearning such as directive and receptive eLearning in Kahoot. You can use Kahoot during or after scenario-based eLearning for formative assessments when you want to test how effective the instruction was or check to see if learners can transfer the concepts they’ve learned to their jobs.
Mini Scenarios Using Kahoot
Traditional eLearning is designed to test knowledge of facts and concepts Scenario-based eLearning, on the other hand, is designed to assess a learner’s ability to solve problems and make justifiable decisions. Scenario-based eLearning, for this reason, requires a bit more place setting than traditional eLearning.
For instance, a traditional eLearning question could be framed as:
Fill in the blank:
A good leader______________
- Plans without the team
- Plans with the team and splits tasks appropriately
- Plans with the team but disregards their ideas
- Uses the team’s ideas then takes the praise
A mini scenario-based question could be framed this way:
Mel’s team has a new project to execute. Mel sees this as a great opportunity to show the HR team that she is an excellent supervisor. What should she do?
- Plan the project from start to finish without her team’s input.
- Brainstorm with the team to come up with a plan, then split the tasks evenly
- Ask the team for input but make all the decisions because she’s the team leader.
- Ask the team to plan and execute the project, then send her the report to present.
A scenario-based question provides the learner with more context. With more context to understand the challenge or situation, learners can induce higher-order thinking to resolve the problem. Mini scenarios don’t require branches like branching scenarios where a response depends on the learner’s path. You can easily create mini-scenarios in Kahoot and include a presentation slide for feedback. I think mini-scenarios are great for supporting directive learning as they offer the learner a chance to practice transferring what they learned to workplace situations.
Creating Linear Scenarios with Kahoot.
It is possible to build a complete eLearning module with Kahoot. If you create relevant related questions, provide feedback and results, and you can make your linear scenario using Kahoot.
In Linear scenario-based e-learning, after learners choose and get feedback, they encounter the same content. In branching scenarios, the content that learners encounter is proceeding dependent on the decisions they make. There is no way to provide different content for learners based on their answers, but if you want to create linear scenarios, Kahoot will do the job.
In my example, slides 1 – 5 could make up part of a linear scenario. The path my scenario takes looks like this:
All learners encounter this same path. With a premium subscription, you can add audio and video to your scenario if you want.
Building Assessments in Kahoot
Kahoot has a lot of testing options, and they can be combined in one game. You can set a time limit that ranges from 5 seconds to 4 minutes. You could set each question type to award learners the standard number of points, double points, or no points at all. I especially like that the answers can be a text or an image, so if the 75 characters aren’t enough for an answer, you could try fitting the words onto an image.
Some question types such as open-ended questions, quiz plus audio, and word clouds can only be assessed with a premium option. There is Kahoot for work and school. I tested the options on the Pro plan for teachers. It offers polls, puzzles, true or false, presentation slides, and quiz question types.
Quiz Question Type
With this question type, there are two answer options available. You can decide if learners select one of the answers or multiple answers before submitting their answers. This is an example of how the responses appear in a quiz question type.
True or False Question Type
The true and false answers are already prefilled. All you need do is type in the question and identify the correct answer.
Puzzle Question Type
Puzzle Question types are the drag and of Kahoot. In my example, the learner is expected to place a leadership quote in the correct order. I created the image with the text and uploaded it to the platform.
I like this question type because it raises the stakes in the learning environment, and you can use it to examine learners when high precision is required for the skill or task. You can use puzzles to assess learners after onboarding or compliance training or to review any process when learners must arrange the steps in the correct order.
Poll Question Type
Another great question type on Kahoot is the poll. You can use it to provide an opportunity for learners to give you feedback. For instance, you can find out if they like the e-learning module you created.
I created a question to find out my learner’s working styles through their own self-evaluation. With this question type, you can toggle if learners get to select one or more answers. This is what the results of the poll look like.
Providing Feedback in Kahoot
I was able to provide this vital component of eLearning using presentation slides. You can give feedback using a combination of quiz question types and presentations slides. If you want to provide more feedback than Kahoot does, you could include a presentation slide after each quiz question. Here’s one of the slides I provided for one of the questions in my quiz. This slide appears just after the learner has answered the question and gotten a score.
I got around the word count of 240 or fewer characters by creating slides with the questions I wanted to ask. I did the same for the feedback slides and the result slides. There is no way I could have gotten all that text onto the Kahoot platform without creating the text as images.
Results
Kahoot does a great job of providing feedback for quiz takers. When learners play a Kahoot simultaneously and can see their scores increase or their positions on the scoreboard change based on their answers, instructors can gather data on the number of questions answered, duration, and difficulty level from the results section.
Kahoot also allows instructors to assign quizzes for learners to take later. They do this by generating pins instructors can share with the learners to take quizzes and displays the results. For quizzes you assign to learners, Kahoot provides a link they can follow to return to the scoreboard to see how well they did in comparison to others who took the test. Learners can enter nicknames if they want to remain anonymous or hidden from others on the scoreboard. But if you decide to use Kahoot for grading, you could require learners to enter their names for a grade.
Conclusion
Kahoot makes it easy to create interactive and engaging eLearning without any specialized authoring software. The platform is sufficient for building tests to test concepts and facts and some level of micro-learning. Kahoot acts as its learning management system, and course and assessment creators can download reports that provide insight into how learners are performing. Kahoot won’t replace your favorite eLearning authoring tools, but it will support it.
Good luck creating with Kahoot.