Using Blooket to Engage Students Digitally

Virtual learning feeling a little dull lately? Hybrid learning taking its toll on your once powerful engagement strategies? No worries, there is a new FREE game website to catch students attention once again, called Blooket! Blooket can be described as a combination of Kahoot and Quizziz all wrapped up into one! The best part, though, is that it’s new and exciting! Blooket utilizes multiple choice questions, includes public question sets, competitive games, instant rewards, and options for solo or team play. There are a variety of game options too! Keep learning new and students on their toes with Blooket!

Details Please!

Blooket is a free website that is accessible by any device. To start the login is simple. Signing up with Google is always a great option. Once you are signed up and ready to explore, you can begin checking out all of the options Blooket has to offer. The options are what makes Blooket more unique than the other review game sites that are already widely used.

Once you have arrived, it is time to explore what Blooket has to offer! There are a bunch of sets already created and available to use as soon as you log in. Simply click “Discover Sets,” to see the options! Most of the sets that appear will be fun trivia like games, that the kids will have a blast doing, like “Name this Food” or “Guess the Movie.”

These would be great options for practice rounds and getting to know the ins and outs of the game play. Don’t fret though, this is still a great tool for content review! Just use the search tool and take a look at the premade Blookets for all different subjects available. Don’t like those? You can absolutely make your own sets to personalize the experience to your specific needs and content.

Found a Set?

Once you have found the question set that you want to use, the rest is fairly user friendly. There will be the option for “Host” or “Solo.” “Host” is for teachers that want to lead a game with students during class.

Once you click on “Host,” you will be prompted to choose a game mode! This is one of the cool, new options in Blooket, because not all games are the same every time! When starting out I suggest using a simple game like “Racing” where students simply race each other to the end. Gold Quest is a matter of winning the most gold! Battle Royale will pair students or teams of students head to head each round until ultimately there is a winner! With most of the games there are opportunities for stealing points, freezing other players or swapping points. This keeps the game interesting and what I like the best is the fastest clicker or the smartest student isn’t always number one. It keeps the playing field level and gives students the ability to show their classmates anyone has a chance to win!

Homework Mode or Live Game?

Once you have chosen your game option, there is one more option. You may assign “HW” or “Host.”

The “HW” or homework option is going to give you options to assign the Blooket as a homework assignment to be done at a certain time and date. Students can work on it at their own pace.

You can also choose settings for how you want students to complete the game. You can put a time limit on it or you can put a “cash goal” on it meaning students would play until they earned that much cash (similar to points) in the game. For younger students, using the time feature may be beneficial. Students will have opportunities to earn new Blooks as they answer questions correctly encouraging independence, but also to keep students attention on the learning!

Once the assignment comes due, you can click on “Homework” in the menu and see the data including the percentage of each student and which questions students struggled the most with!

If you choose to “Host” a game, this will be a live game where students will join with a code, similar to how you would join Kahoot. Students will be prompted to choose a “Blook,” which is simply a character to use as their avatar for the game and to enter their name. Students do not have to have an account to play Blooket and can simply enter with a game code. If you would like students to have an account then they would be able to earn coins playing for new avatars and other rewards, but note that the age requirement is 13 on the website.

Once the game begins, you, the teacher, will see the leaderboard and watch as students use their prizes and rewards, steal money, or even spin the screen to slow everyone else down. The students will see the question set and students will move at their own pace through the questions. The game will stop when the cash requirement is met or the time runs out! The competitive spirit of your students will definitely be seen using Blooket!

Under “History,” you will see all of the games you have played and some data for each of the games. In order to see more detailed information, you would need to upgrade to Blooket Plus, which is a paid version, but I think you can still gleam a ton of information from the free version!

Blooket Plus

Of course there are parts of the site that are paid and the paid version is called Blooket Plus. One of the features in Blooket Plus that would be worth the cost is if you want to make a few changes to already created content. This is a feature of the paid version. Simply click on the double square, “Duplicate,” and you will make your own set that you can edit! There are also data points that are only available through Blooket Plus, but the free version really does have plenty!

Blooket has a bunch of options for reviewing concepts in all subjects. It gives students the incentive to win prizes and feeds into students’ competitive spirit for sure. Homework mode allows for students to compete with just themselves if that works better for your classes! Best of all, something new like Blooket, keeps hybrid or virtual learning interesting and exciting! Check out Blooket to keep learning new today! If you want to learn about another engaging digital tool, you can learn about Pear Deck HERE!

I really hope you enjoyed learning more about Blooket and how it can transform your online learning! Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list! Not only will you get the most up to date tips, tricks, and classroom projects… and of course the ever growing FREEBIE Library! You will also have exclusive access to tons of digital how to videos! If you would like to learn about this and other things happening in my classroom follow me @sweetnsauerfirsties on Instagram.