pizazz

I’m a big fan of sites that let you create virtual private rooms where students can compete against each other in learning games and see their constantly changing results. Of course, for these to be successful learning experiences, you have to have helped create a culture that everyone feels like they’re winners. In my English Language Learner classes, I’m pretty confident that we have this kind of environment and students realize that much of people’s success in the classroom is primarily due to how long each person has been studying English — not because anyone is “smarter” than anyone else.

Unfortunately, because of relatively recent changes in our District’s Web filter, most of the sites that I’ve used before and which can be found on The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms” list are now blocked.

Today, though, thanks to The Edublogger’s Weekly Round-Up, I learned about Amy Kincaid’s post talking about Quizizz.

Quizizz, which is free, lets you access tons of previously-created learning “quizzes” and also lets you create your own. Once you as the teacher joins, which takes seconds, you pick a quiz; are given a code for a virtual room; then give the code to your students, who just log in with the code and a nickname (they don’t have to register with the site). When all your students are set, you click “start game.” You see the leader board as do the students as they’re progressing through the quiz.

In a number of ways, it’s similar to Kahoot. However, the key advantage that Quizizz seems to have over Kahoot is that with Quizizz, students see the questions, answers, and their leaderboard on their devise. With Kahoot (and please correct me if I’m wrong), students’ devices only show the answers and they have to look at an overhead to see the questions. In antiquated computer labs like the ones at our school (and, I suspect, at many others), we don’t have the capability of projecting a screen for students to see it.

I’m hoping that Quizizz is not blocked for students when I try it out tomorrow at school.

I’m adding this post to the previously-mentioned Best list on sites where students can play in private virtual rooms, as well as to The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games.