5 Reasons Kahoot & Infuse Learning are the Perfect Formative Assessment Pair

***Infuse Learning will discontinue their service on April 3, 2015.***

This week we (myself and the elementary instructional technology coach in my district) are leading a number of educational technology PD sessions about many different topics for teachers to attend before going back to school.  The more I interact with some of these tools, the more I really love and swear by them to be used by any age or subject area.  Two of the tools I’m teaching this week, Kahoot and Infuse Learning, make a perfect formative assessment pair. I just had to share them!

Kahoot turns your normal questions into a fun, interactive game that kids of all ages really do love to play! It is similar to the trivia game at BW3’s; the quicker you answer the question correctly, the more points you are assigned.  To see Kahoot in action with students, watch the short video below.

Infuse Learning can be used on the fly for a number of quick questions throughout a lessons or you can save and distribute quizzes. Question options include students’ drawings, multiple choice, true/false, extended response, Lickert scale and more.  For a quick overview of Infuse Learning, watch the video below.

Below are the following 5 reasons I think these tools are fabulous and realistic formative assessment tools.

1. Instant access to detailed results– No need to collect a bunch of papers, take the time to grade every students’ response, put the results in a spreadsheet and analyze the results yourself, and the other timely things teachers have to do to get meaningful information about students’ progress with more traditional classroom techniques. Kahoot gives you a break down of how many students responded with each answer choice after each question, allowing the teacher to address any common misconceptions on the spot. At the end of every Kahoot game, the teacher can download the results.  The results will tell you how long each student took to answer each question, their response, how many students responded correctly and incorrectly to each question and more.
   Infuse Learning results essentially tell you the same thing when you save students’ responses.  When using the quick assessment tools, you can quickly save the results to the results section and keep moving so your teaching isn’t interrupted. Being able to look at students’ responses as they come in allows you to address any errors or misconceptions on the spot.
2. Kids are engaged and interested– I’ve seen kids at the high school level and at the grade school level have a blast with Kahoot. They will be begging you to play the game again, so they can increase their score and beat their classmates next time. If you don’t go over an explanation of the correct answers with them right away, kids will be looking up the answers on their own in between rounds of playing the game to improve their score.  The time limit keeps kids on their toes and prevents them from looking up answers as they go.  Kids enjoy Kahoot, so they stay engaged with the game, and ultimately the content.
   When using the quick assessment tools in Infuse Learning throughout a lesson, students must be following along and paying attention in order to answer.  The teacher can see the student’s responses, so it is clear who is paying attention and who may be daydreaming in the back.  The teacher can also see who has responded and who has not responded to any question, so no student can get out of answering a question.
3. Simple to set up and navigate the teacher’s side– What teacher has time to learn another complicated tool or software?  The easier the better when it comes to saving time, and these two tools couldn’t be easier to navigate and set up. Since it shouldn’t take an overwhelming amount of time to get your quizzes set up in these tools, teachers will be more likely to use them on a daily/weekly basis.
4. Students (or participants) don’t need to have an account & password- they will just need the room pin number provided by each site once you are logged in as the teacher.
5. Will work on any device- this makes these tools useful in any setting: BYO, 1:1or checking out labs/carts.

So how do they go together? I would use Infuse Learning in my classroom on (almost) a daily basis to establish a routine with students (you can also import class lists and use Infuse Learning to take attendance based on students “entering” your class) and keep my lessons interactive. I would try to use the quiz feature to set up exit slips as frequently as I could.  Kahoot would come into play in my classroom for review sessions before tests and to check understanding for more complicated or dull topics that need a little spicing up to keep students interested.

What are your favorite formative assessment tools to use in todays classroom? What do you think of Kahoot and Infuse Learning?

Tech To You Later!
-Katie