Kahoot, PowerPoint or Flippity - Which is Your Favorite Game Show App?

Written by Mathieu R @NU

One of my go to's when it comes to reviewing concepts, or even just quickly evaluating a student's basic comprehension of a lesson is Kahoot. I was first introduced to Kahoot my first year of teaching when I started teaching high school. I started my contract in the fall just after Halloween and was taking over a teacher who was leaving for a teaching opportunity in England. I was fortunate enough to get a few days of transition where we both got to be in the classroom and team teach and it also gave me an opportunity to meet the students before actually meeting the students if that makes sense. She had it setup where every Friday there would be a Kahoot and every week a different student would be in charge of creating and leading the Kahoot. Keep in mind that this was a French class, so it was nice because we had questions varying from how do you say the name of this object in French, to what is the correct spelling of this word, to conjugate this verb in this tense and this person / number. The students always had fun and I would also ask them to throw in some basic vocabulary / concepts from whatever unit we were on, sometimes I would even get them to include the spelling words which would be posted on the wall in the classroom (this one was neat because you could see how has been studying and who hasn't based from the amount of time they would stare at the chart paper with the spelling words). Yes, Kahoot is a great activity, but that's not what we are here to talk about today. I want to talk about the real OG of Kahoot; PowerPoint Games, or as everyone likes to call it, Jeopardy! 

Jeopardy is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Questions are divided into categories and answering questions awards the participant with various points depending on the hierarchy of the question. Classroom Jeopardy has been around for quite some time and if I think back to when I was a student the first time I was introduced to it was in my grade 8 science class when we wrapped up our unit on Matter & Energy. At the end of the unit we were divided into teams and competed to see which group had the most knowledge on the topic. To ensure everyone was participating my teacher had a system where everyone had a cube and in order to answer the question you had to throw your cube in a giant box that was in the middle of the horseshoe. If you missed you still got to answer but you were unable to answer a question if you did not have a cube. To make things more interesting we were not able to discuss answers within our own group. It was a very challenging game because there was only as many questions as there were students, which means everyone had to go, and if you weren't the smartest person on this subject you would be more enticed to go first with one of the 100s or 200s questions so that you did not get stuck with the complicated questions at the end. 

Since then I have been an avid user of Jeopardy as a tool for reviewing the end of units, and even for doing diagnostic assessments before we begin a unit. I find that I tend to use this tool most during science lessons, and to consolidate new verb tenses when I teach French. I can be used in virtually any lesson and any topic, but for me, I personally find it works best in those two areas. In recent years I have changed over to Kahoot for the most part. It is a lot easier to use, allows for more participation since everyone gets to answer, and for the most part the Kahoot you need is probably already made for you. The Kahoot library has thousands of premade quizzes which you can make a copy of and edit as you please. It is a little tricky to get started over the traditional PowerPoint, but once you get the hang of it, not only is it faster to create, but also easier to keep track of points, who is in the lead, and the students get really into it, especially the ones that are never really engaged in the traditional classroom setting. 

This year since I am back in my own classroom my goal is to try and get back to my roots and try to incorporate more PowerPoint Style quizzes as I find myself relying on Kahoot more than I should. I do have quite a few PowerPoint Jeopardies already made from previous years and I have many friends who have shared theirs with me (Hmm… maybe its about time to start making a public repository of PowerPoints available to teachers, great post for my blog haha). Just on a side note I want to make you aware that PowerPoint is not the only way to do this. You can also create a Jeopardy / Quiz show using Google Slides, and this cool website even lets you make it in Google Sheets and converts it to a web based quiz show for you and makes keeping track of points easier than ever. 

Full Tutorial on how to use Flippity, click here >>> Brenham Tech Daily

Quiz / Game Show example with Flippity (Google Sheets)

Link to how to create a Quizz show using Flippity (Google Sheets)

Courtesy of Mathieu R@NU

Professionally Speaking Article: Apps Analysis 3

 Draw a Stickman: EPIC 3

In the latest instalment of the Draw a Stickman series, players see their creations come to life in a slime-fighting adventure, starting with a simple task: draw a stickman. From there the scene opens onto Stickville, where your character meets new friends. But those pals are whisked away in a supernatural earthquake. Can you bring them home? Draw tools to outsmart bad guys, cut through obstacles and find your lost buddies. It's a clever way to get students to practise drawing, which is fundamental to Ontario's elementary arts curriculum. The free version is ad-supported; the non-ad version is available via in-app purchase ($5.49).

DEVICE: Apple, Android
SOURCE: Apple App Store (free), Google Play (free)
Rating: 4+, Everyone

UN News Reader

Here's a credible source older students can use to help them grasp global events. The United Nations News Reader provides articles, videos and podcasts on peace and security, sustainable development, human rights and climate change. Reports cover efforts to contain Ebola in Côte d'Ivoire, the latest on what's happening in Afghanistan, and how climate change is affecting the weather in Caribbean and Latin American countries. Users can view news by region, topic and media type. UN Security Council and General Assembly meetings are broadcast live. Recommended for high school students in courses tackling human rights, the environment and other worldwide topics.

DEVICE: Apple, Android
SOURCE: Apple App Store (free), Google Play (free)
Rating: 12+, Ev

Github : A Powerful Collaborative Workspace Like No Other

Written by Mathieu Robichaud 

Github is a powerful online collaboration workspace where anyone from anywhere can collaborate with one another on various projects. It is used primarily for software development with a heavy focus on version control using Git; a linux based software that was designed to ease coordinating work among programmers collaboratively. Github is arranged by things called repositories, which act very similar to a folder. Each repository has a spot to upload files, an issues section which is essentially a discussion board where you can post any issues or bugs you have encountered, a pull section where users can upload their own fixes to issues which other users in the repository can use until the fix is integrated into the main repository, and finally a section where you can write a little bit about your project and any requirements it needs.

Now if this sounds like it's out of your league or too complicated for you, think of Github as like an Internet hosting space similar to Google Drive or Dropbox, but just keeps better track of what has been changed, who changed it, and why. It has a built-in discussion board similar to the comments section in Google Class which lets users identify any issues they are having. Finally, you can also access previous versions of projects more easily if you are having issues with the current version of the software. I know it can look really intimidating at first but it is very simple and easy to use. I personally have been using Github to collaborate in open source projects, and to use some of the great software there. I will be showing you two of my favorite and useful repositories that I use, one a useful tool, and the other a huge collaborative project that revolves around the raspberry pi platform. 

Please watch the video below on how to set up your own account, and how to get started using Github. 

Video Link :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OFZ-Xw_j5MsYWGAnJKHA39S2z4HEi41N/view?usp=sharing

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Mathieu Robichaud