Twitter Bingo - A Fun Way to Introduce Twitter to Teachers

I spent yesterday working with teachers in Canton, Connecticut. A Twitter Bingo board was one of the first things that I noticed when I walked into the room in which I gave my opening talk. I immediately snapped a picture of it and Tweeted it. Throughout the day that picture was liked and reTweeted dozens of times.

This is a neat way to introduce Twitter to teachers #cantonedchat pic.twitter.com/LmigfZ00Ow

— Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) November 8, 2016

The Twitter bingo chart that I photographed was developed in part by Ruth Kidwell. Ruth later replied to a Tweet from a teacher who wanted to use the chart for introducing Twitter to his colleagues. Ruth's reply included a link to the Google Drawing in which the Twitter Bingo game was created.

Of course! Here's what we used: https://t.co/g21q8N1Dqe It was great!! #CantonEdchat #hcfvEdchat https://t.co/MsI4siP6tc

— Ruth Kidwell (@RuthKidwell) November 8, 2016

It is one thing to talk to your colleagues about using Twitter for professional development, but it's another to get them to actually use it. Twitter Bingo provides people with a fun way to learn about how Twitter works.

Jumble Mode Is a New Way to Play Kahoot Games

Earlier today while creating a chart to compare features of popular quiz game tools I noticed that Kahoot has a new formatting option called Jumble Mode. The jumble mode lets you create quiz games in which students sort answer choices instead of just picking one correct answer from a multiple choice or true/false question. The jumble mode is still a beta product which means that you can currently try quizzes that have jumble mode, but you can't yet create your won jumble mode quizzes. A selection of jumble mode quizzes is available in this Kahoot blog post.

I played a Kahoot quiz in jumble mode this morning. The concept is solid. There is one thing that needs to be improved in the jumble mode. When students play a quiz in jumble mode they still have to look up at the screen in the front of the room to see the question and answer choices. Like all other Kahoot games, in jumble mode, students only see four colored shapes on their devices. Shifting attention between the screen in the front of the room and the screen in your hands adds a bit of a disconnect between the question and the answer choices. This is the same complaint that I've had about Kahoot's format for years.

Applications for Education
Once it is available to all teachers, Kahoot's jumble mode could prove to be a good way to create sequencing and sorting quiz games. When I first saw jumble mode I immediately thought of using it to create a game in which students put a series of historical events into their proper chronological sequence.

Six Tools for Creating Classroom Quiz Games - A Comparison Chart

Twice in the last week I have given presentations about tools for creating fun formative assessment activities. The most popular part of that presentation is when we play a couple of quiz games in Kahoot and Socrative. Those are probably the best known quiz game platforms. They are not the only quiz game platforms. There are some other good ones. All of them have a common purpose, to make review fun, and all of them have some common features. The comparison chart embedded below can help you see the different features of six popular quiz game tools. Those tools are Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizalize, Triventy, Socrative, and Quizlet Live.

The features that are common to all six platforms are:
1. Teachers can collaborate on quiz creation by accessing published quizzes and modifying them for their own classroom use.
2. All of these quiz game tools let teachers get results in a spreadsheet format.
3. Teachers can set the games to give students immediate feedback on their answers.


The chart embedded above is hosted on Box.com. You won't be able to view the chart if your school's network blocks Box.com. If that's the case, you can view a Google Docs version of the chart.