The day I found out about Kahoot was one of the greatest days in my classroom. I was so excited to play online classroom games with my students–something they had never seen before. They loved it. I’m a little embarrassed now to say that I played Kahoot in each period (I teach middle and high school), for an entire period, for a whole day. We couldn’t get enough!
Now, years have gone by, and Kahoot is OLD. The kids are tired of it. And, to make matters worse, our students now expect these types of educational games to play online.
Especially now, trying to teach during the COVID-19 pandemic, engaging students is even more of a challenge than usual. I myself spent so much time looking for educational games that I could play on Zoom.
So, to help other teachers that are like me and are always looking for the newest, trending educational games, I have compiled my favorites below.
These games are SO versatile.
You can play these games with your students on Zoom, you can play them synchronously, asynchronously, and even in hybrid settings with both in-person and remote learners.
Blooket
Blooket is the newest craze in my classroom. It was actually brought to me by one of my students who knows how much I love playing games in class.
I always want to “sneak the learning in” with games in my class, so when students lose interest in a game that we have played many times (like Kahoot), it starts to feel like a chore for them.
Blooket is like Gimkit in that there are many different game modes to play from a single set of questions–giving it excellent replay value. Having new game modes continuously added also means less work for me as the teacher because I can re-use the same question sets with many different games.
Finally, and possibly my favorite part of Blooket so far is the ability to assign homework. You can assign homework to students without them needing to create an account. You can also choose different game modes for the homework!
Quizizz
This game sets up a lot like Kahoot with questions and answers, but the gameplay is slightly different. You can play the game synchronously or asynchronously and still have students compete against each other.
The questions are displayed right on the student’s devices–instead of being projected on the board. The questions are also randomized, so students sitting next to each other will have different questions. They score more points by answering questions the fastest and correctly. Quizizz is always adding new features for teachers like the ability to make a lesson out of the game by adding slides.
Gimkit Live
This is a lesser-known classroom gaming platform, but it has been growing in popularity in the last three years that I have been using it.
Full disclaimer, there is no free account options.
This is only a paid service–and no this is not an ad. Based on my experience with this platform compared to all others that I have used, it is by far the most user-friendly and versatile service.
What makes Gimkit stand out from other online games?
The user interface. Gimkit makes it easy to import your own questions from an Excel, Quizlet set, Word Document, etc. (Get my free guide to creating 20 different games with one Excel sheet).
Once you have created your questions, you can switch very easily between input questions (multiple-choice, true/false, etc.) and output questions (fill in the blanks).
Their database. The user database is always growing and pre-made sets are easier and easier to find from other teachers. Why re-invent the wheel? Am I right?
Their assignments. They have by-far the most options for creating assignments for students. You can set goals for students (example: earn $1 million dollars), but then you can add additional sub-goals to differentiate for all learners (example: earn $1 million dollars, or play for 10 minutes, whichever comes first).
