Kahoot it: make a Kahoot in 5 mins!

Kahoot is a fun way to assess learners through a web-based program. Although it was designed to be used for teachers, it is being used by corporations as well. You can create a game-like activity where respondents are presented with questions. They can access this game on Kahoot.it by entering a ‘Kahoot pin’. Once the recipients enter the game, they can answer the questions on their computers or smart devices.

Brands can customize the look and feel of the quizzes to reflect their own aesthetics. Additionally, you can refer to their official design guide for the same.

The word “Kahoot” is a distorted form of word Cahoot. Cahoot as a word has a negative connotation. It is generally used in the form of the phrase ‘in cahoots with’, which means ‘partnership’ of co-conspirators. However, this interactive tool is a game-changer in the field of education. Researchers have found that the use of Kahoot in the classroom can reduce distractions and enhance learning. The platform offers an opportunity for the students to get feedback on their strong and weak areas helping them learn better(Licorish et al, 2018 and Wang and Tahir, 2020).

Psychology & Gameplay!

It works on two psychological phenomena: ‘behaviorist approach’ and ‘gamification’.

Firstly, the behaviorist approach was developed by John Watson in his article ‘Psychology as the behaviorist views it’ in 1913 (Watson, 1913). The approach works by rewarding good behavior. It is posited that all behavior is learned from the environment and termed classical conditioning. This gave rise to a new way of looking at psychology from the eyes of a behaviorist.

Secondly, it works by gamifying the activity. The participants get points for playing and winning the quizzes. When a company wants to increase its engagement, it can try using Kahoot to create and distribute games to potential players.

How does it work?

In a classroom, the teachers have been using rewards like giving a star on an excellent answer sheet. Kahoot is not very different from that. It just takes this ‘rewarding’ ecosystem to another level, the students who ‘win’ the game get highlighted as the star students in a class.

“It is a simple game-show format,” said Johan Brand who is the CEO of Kahoot in an interview with the NY Times. As a company, the approach is to create the tool as a playful interactive interface where there is higher engagement than traditional methods of scholastic assessment. It is essentially a way to gamify the quizzes.

About 30 million public games are being played by 1 billion players

Another way to look at this game is to think of a ‘TV show’ or ‘video game’. The teacher acts as a host who introduces the quiz to the participants. These quizzes typically have multiple choice type questions. Each question is projected to the screen one by one. The students get half a minute to answer the question. If they answer correctly, the students earn points; if they answer faster, they earn more points.

Adding to the fun is a countdown timer that resembles a TV show and has a bell at the end. The board then shows the correct answer as well as a summary of the respondents who answered it correctly and incorrectly. Students who get the highest points make it to the hall of fame of top scorers.

Setting up an account

You need to visit Kahoot.com to set up your account. Please follow the steps given below to create your first Kahoot in 5 minutes:

Create your first quiz

When you choose the live game, the players can see the questions on the projected screen. They shall answer together on their devices. This is the game-show kind of gameplay and timed event. On the other hand, the ‘Create challenge’ mode offers the students a more flexible self-paced option. They can answer the questions visible on their screen.

Once you have chosen the mode, you need to share the game PIN with your players. They need to go to Kahoot.it where they have to enter the PIN. After entering the PIN they have to enter their name. Once that is done, they can play the game. The registered students can also have their gameplay tracked.

Compare the Kahoot premium and Free plans for educators

Plan	Price	Max players
Basic	Free	50
Plus	$5*	100
Pro	$10*	200
Premium	$15*	2000

*Per teacher per month. However, the billing cycle is annual. 7 day free trial for all plans is also available.

As an educator or content creator, you have an option to choose either the free plans or go with the paid ones. The basic plan should get you started with a capping of up to 50 players for a game. This cap is valid for both the live games as well as student-paced challenges. The Plus plan increases the total number of students to 100 and the Pro plan further increases it to 200. However, the premium plan offers connectivity to up to 2000 players.

There are some other differences between paid and free plans, mainly in terms of how you create the content. Only the Pro and Premium plans offer some of these benefits like adding polls and puzzles. There are also some differences in terms of support where the Pro and Premium members are prioritized.

Kahoot Plus corporate plans

Kahoot also wants to tap the vase corporate market. It offers plans for clients like National Geographic. It mainly targets publishers who want to create quizzes or interactive content for their clients. This plan is available for $40 per user per month, billed annually. They also offer a 14-day free trial.

Secondly, in the time of user experience management, this could be quite useful for the brands to create a deeper engagement with their audience. The links can be shared on the website(up to 100 games), social media, email, and other online and offline channels. One benefit for the players would be that there would be no need to register for these games.

The Kahoot lingo

Word	Meaning
Kahoot it	create a Kahoot game of an assessment
Kahooting	act of playing a Kahoot game

The company

Crunchbase data reveals that the company has gone through two rounds of funding. Series A and B funding total to about $58.9 million.

Kahoot acquired a math game app called DragonBox in May 2019 for $18 million. This has added math-based activities for the educators which were previously missing. Additionally, the company also took over Poio which is a reading app. This acquisition was pegged at about 6.5 million US dollars. Most notably, DragonBox is a Nordic company but Poio is from Scandinavia.

Founders	Alf Inge Wang, Asmund Furuseth, Jamie Brooker, Johan Brand, Morten Versvik
CEO	Eilert Giertsen Hanoa
Creation of games	Kahoot.com
Website to play games	Kahoot.it
IPO date	Oct 10. 2019
IPO valuation	$500 million
Stock code	OSE:KAHOOT-ME
Company size	~100
Monthly active users	over 70 million

The dark side

Gamification has its own drawbacks. The children who win may develop a sense of elitism. This could be detrimental in the longer run. On the other hand, a majority of the students who lose might develop an inferiority complex.

However, one downside to the behaviorist approach is the habituation of the reward or of punishment. Students who consistently score badly in the Kahoot games may develop a sense of ‘learned helplessness’ and stop trying after a while.

The company has also got into controversies due to students committing suicide. His parents have alleged that the reason for suicide was the amount of pressure he got due to the hyper-competitive nature of the games. He also came across some ‘suicide quizzes’ on the platform that lead to his decision to end his life. However, there are both good and bad things associated with every technology.

The future

The company continues to offer an edutainment platform that is liked by millions of users. Currently, educators can use it to create different types of quizzes, jumbled, surveys, and challenges. Additionally, as a gesture during the Covid19 outbreak, the company announced free access to premium features. This comes as a welcome gesture as other companies like YouTube are struggling to keep up with the internet bandwidth for HD streaming. There are over 70 million monthly active users in over 200 countries. Market penetration is close to 50% in Western European and North American countries. An example of a quiz/game is available here: https://embed.kahoot.it/6bb6ca4f-26f2-4aef-a28d-ca683740db60

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