Teacher’s starter

guide to Kahoot!

New to Kahoot!? You’ll be creating and playing First, what is Kahoot!? 2

awesome learning games in no time, both in How to play your first kahoot 4
class and via distance learning - just follow
the step-by-step instructions in this guide. How to host a kahoot live in class 4

How to host a kahoot via video for distance learning 5

You’ll learn how to find ready-to-use kahoots,
host a kahoot in class or via distance learning, How to assign a student-paced challenge 6
assign student-paced challenges, and even
How to find a high quality kahoot 7
create your own kahoots. Let’s get started!
How to create your first kahoot 8

Intro to Kahoot! reports: assess learning results 9

Ready for more? Check our free PD resources 10

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First, what is Kahoot!?

Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform used by millions of people around the

world every day to discover, create, play and share learning games. It makes learning
fun and engaging for students and teachers, businesses, families and friends.

At school, Kahoot! can be used for any subject, any age, and with any device - students don’t
even need to register for an account. You can use Kahoot! both when teaching in class, for
distance learning and in a blended learning format. Millions of teachers use Kahoot! to…

▶ Introduce new topics

▶ Review content at class and home
▶ Engage students via distance learning
▶ Run formative assessment
▶ Teach interactive lessons
▶ Break the ice and reward the class
▶ Collect student opinions
▶ Foster creativity and teamwork
▶ Engage colleagues with professional development

Pro tip
One of the things that makes Kahoot! so unique is Search more than 60 million kahoots in our public
that it’s a platform where you decide on the learning library and adapt them for your class, if you don’t
content, the imagery and how the kahoot is played. have time to create a new kahoot from scratch.
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Hosting a kahoot remotely

How to create a Kahoot! account

To get started with Kahoot! as a teacher, you need to register for an account.
Note that students don’t need accounts in order to play kahoots.

1.  Go to kahoot.com and click Sign up.

2.  Choose Teacher as your account type.

3.  Specify whether you work in a school, a higher

education institution, or in school administration.

4.  If you’d like to sign up with an email, type your email address
and a secure password you’d like to use. Alternatively, you
can sign up with your existing Google or Microsoft accounts
and use those credentials to log in to Kahoot! later.

5.  Choose a plan: you can use Kahoot! for free, or upgrade
to one of our premium plans to unlock additional
features. You can decide to upgrade at any time!

6.  Fill out some additional information in the welcome screen

so we can better customize the Kahoot! experience for you.

7.  Voila, you’re a registered Kahoot! user! Shortly, you’ll receive

a welcome email with some tips to get started.

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How to play your
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first kahoot

You can host a kahoot live to teach in class or remotely, or assign a student-paced challenge.

How to host a kahoot live in class

When playing live in class, kahoots are displayed on a shared screen everyone in the classroom can see. Students
join in and answer using their own device with an internet connection - for example, a tablet or computer.

1.  Open a kahoot you’d like to host for your

students, click Play and choose Teach.

2.  Adjust game options - for example, randomize the order

of questions, or enable our friendly nickname generator to
avoid inappropriate nicknames. Choose whether students
play individually (Classic mode) or in Team mode.

3.  A unique Game PIN will be displayed at the top of the

screen. Students enter this PIN to join the live kahoot
in the Kahoot! app or at kahoot.it in their browser.

4.  Click Start once you can see all the players’ nicknames
in the “lobby”. During playing you can use the
spacebar or your mouse to go to the next question.

5.  After the kahoot, you can always find and

assess results in the Reports section.

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Hosting a kahoot remotely

How to host a kahoot via video

for distance learning
When hosting a kahoot for distance learning, you’ll need
to use a video conferencing tool and share your screen.

1.  Open a kahoot you’d like to host.

2.  Connect to your video conferencing tool of choice - for

example, Google Meet, Skype, or Zoom - make sure your
webcam, microphone, and speaker are turned on.

3.  Once all students have joined, click Play

and Teach to start the kahoot. Adjust game
options as described in step 2 above.

4.  Share your screen, so students joining can all see the
game PIN. They will need a screen to see questions
and a second device to join the live kahoot.

5.  Click Start once everyone is ready

and host the kahoot as usual.

Pro tip
Visit our library and download our distance
learning guide to get more tips for using
Kahoot! to engage students remotely.

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Hosting a kahoot remotely

How to assign a student-paced challenge

In this mode, students will see both questions and answers on their device screens
and play at their own pace - which means they can play anywhere, anytime!

1.  Open a kahoot you’d like to host for your students,

click Play and choose Assign.

2.  Follow the instructions and set a deadline when you’d like the
kahoot challenge to be completed. Adjust additional options:

▶ Turn off the question timer to make the challenge all about accuracy

▶ Randomize answer order to prevent guessing

▶ Enable our friendly nickname generator to

avoid inappropriate nicknamest

3.  Hit Create and copy the challenge link. Share it with your students
– for example, via email or directly to Google Classroom, Remind or
Turning the timer off in a student-paced
Microsoft Teams. Alternatively, you can share the PIN of the challenge.
challenge will decrease guesswork, prioritize
4.  By joining your challenge via a link or PIN, students play it accuracy, and improve students’ focus.
at their own pace on a computer or mobile device. That’s why many teachers find challenges
especially helpful for content review, exam
5.  Same as after a live kahoot, you can find results of
prep, and homework assignments.
a student-paced challenge in Reports.

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How to find a high
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quality kahoot

Our Kahoot! library has more than 60 million existing public kahoots for
you to play, duplicate or edit. A ready-to-use kahoot is a great starting
point if you don’t have time to create a new kahoot from scratch.

How to find a high quality kahoot

1.  Log in to your Kahoot! account and navigate

to Discover from the top bar.

2.  Have a look at our featured collections, for example:

▶ Top Picks - featured kahoots cherry-picked by our team

▶ Collections by Kahoot! Academy Verified educators
▶ Collections by Kahoot! Academy Premium partners

3.  If you’re looking for something specific, get started by typing a keyword
or phrase into the search bar at the top of the Discover section.

4.  We’ll autosuggest popular kahoots that fit your search

terms, but if you want to dig deeper, you can filter
by Subject, Grade Level, and other filters.

5.  When you find a kahoot you like, you can play it right away, star it to
add to your Favorites, or duplicate it to be able to customize it later.

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How to create your
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first kahoot

Creating your very first kahoot is really exciting!

Once you’ve done your research and established
your learning objectives, you can jump right in:

How to create a kahoot

1.  Log in to your Kahoot! account. Click 5.  Click Add question on the left-hand side. With a free Kahoot! account, you can
Create and choose New kahoot. add multiple-choice quiz and true or false questions. With an optional upgrade
2.  Start typing your first quiz question. to one of our paid plans, you can add these advanced question types:
Add answer alternatives and
▶ Puzzle: students need to arrange ▶ Open-ended question (available
mark the correct answer(s).
answers in the correct order for higher education, coming soon
3.  Tune the timer and points depending ▶ Poll: gather feedback or do a quick for K-12): gather student opinions as
on the complexity of the question. pulse-check during a lesson text answers up to 250 characters

4.  Add an image by uploading it from your ▶ Slide: teach a topic or ▶ Word cloud (available for higher
computer or choosing one from our image provide more context education, coming soon for
library. You can also embed a YouTube link. K-12): collect short free-form
▶ Type answer: students need
poll responses that will be
to type a short text answer
visualized as a word cloud.
Pro tip
All changes will be automatically saved as you go!
Instead of typing questions from scratch, you
can add them from our question bank. It’ll help 6.  After you’ve added questions, click Settings above to add a catchy
you create kahoots 3x as fast. You can access it title, fill out summary details and add a cover image. Hit Done!
from the left-hand side of the kahoot creator.
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How to assess learning

results with Kahoot! reports

With Kahoot! reports, you can capture useful instructional insights for
formative assessment. Learn how to use reports to assess learning and
better target your further instruction - which is especially important for
distance learning when you’re interacting with students remotely.

How to find reports Deeper dive

After you’ve hosted a game live or assigned into analytics
a student-paced challenge, go to the In the Question view
Reports section in the top navigation you can identify where
bar and find the report you need. exactly key challenges
occur. Be sure to look at:
High-level summary ▶ The correct overall incorrectly. How long are they taking to
of kahoot results percentage of the question answer? If they are answering faster than
The Summary section presents various
their peers and making errors, you may
actionable insights in a neat, visual way: ▶ How long it took (in seconds)
need to focus on their lack of attention.
for students to answer
▶ All the key stats - how many
students played, how many When you come across a question that was If there were 3 or more difficult questions
questions there were, etc answered more incorrectly, immediately in a game, you can generate a new kahoot
check to see if multiple students were with them to reinforce learning, power
▶ Which questions were the most
picking the same wrong answer. up content review and prep for exams. A
difficult and might need reteaching
question is labelled as difficult if less than
▶ Which players need help based Look at the Player view to check which 35% of students answered it correctly.
on their game results student (via their nickname) is answering
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Ready for more?

Check our free
PD resources

Register for our free webinars Get Kahoot! Certified Join Kahoot! Academy
Register for one of our free webinars to Maximize learning impact and master Kahoot! Academy is our brand new
learn about best practices from Kahoot! advanced features by getting Kahoot! knowledge platform, online community,
ambassadors and our team. See the full Certified! Our free, online program can and marketplace that lets you access high-
schedule and recordings of previous be taken at your own pace. You’ll score quality learning content. You can apply
webinars at kahoot.com/webinars awesome diplomas, badges and could to become a Kahoot! Academy Verified
even claim professional learning credits. educator or find ready-to-use resources
Get certified at kahoot.com/certified from other educators and partners. Join at
kahoot.com/academy/join-
kahoot-academy/

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