Quizlet Live for Dummies! Why I LOVE it!

Oh my goodness! This week was career changing for me because for the first time,  I experienced Quizlet live with my students.  Through instagram polls, I realized that I’ve totally been missing the quizlet live memo, but boy am I glad that I finally caught up with everyone and joined the Quizlet world!

I’ve been speaking to local educators and many people don’t know what Quizlet live is.  Therefore I want to explain here, as simply as possible, and express why I LOVE it so much!

What is Quizlet live? 

• I believe the best way to define quizlet live is to say that it is a collaborative version of Kahoot where students don’t work individually, but rather as a team with other students to win!
• As the teacher, you log into your quizlet account to find or use your own vocabulary sets to play with.
• When you click on the set, you click on the “live” feature which is usually next to the gravity game.  Once you click on this, a code needed for your students will appear.
• For students, having a quizlet account isn’t necessary!  They simply go to www.quizlet.live and type in the specific code to enter the game.  After the code is entered, they simply type in their name and they’re in!
• Once all students have entered the game, you, as the teacher, click to create the game, and quizlet separates students into random groups that are animal themed.  If Johnny, Mikey, and Sammy are assigned to the Giraffe group, those three students will sit together and get ready to begin.

How is it collaborative?

• Once students are assigned randomized groups by quizlet, those are the students they must work together with in order to win the game.
• Each student is playing with their own device, whether that be a phone, chrome book, iPad, etc.  To continue the example above, Johnny, Mikey and Sammy will have their own screens, however, since they are on the same team, the same question will appear on all three of their screens.
  • If the set is a vocabulary review, perhaps a word in English will appear and the students are looking to match that word with its’ Spanish translation.
• Along with the same question, 3 DIFFERENT choices will appear on each students’ screen.  HOWEVER, only one out of the three students will have the correct answer and have to select an answer.  Therefore, students must work together to ensure that whoever has the correct answer is selecting it. 
• As students are playing, each team’s progress is documented on the teacher’s screen (which should be projected to the class!). You can see an example of this here!  The goal is to complete 12 questions correctly in a row.  HOWEVER, once one student in the group answers a question incorrectly, the team goes back to zero.

Why I LOVE Quizlet Live!

• One of the reasons why I love quizlet live is because it automatically separates students into groups.  This is awesome because it encourages students to work with other students who they might not have voluntarily chosen to work with.  ALSO you, as the teacher, don’t have the pressure of creating groups and hearing students complain, therefore, it’s a win-win for you! You can also shuffle the groups after each round! The more shuffling, the more opportunities for your students to work with different classmates!
• Another reason why I love quizlet live is because it forces students to COMMUNICATE with one another.  I couldn’t help but smile hearing my students speak to one another.  I heard lots of “who has ___?,” “I got it!,” “good job,” “that’s you!,” “yes!,” “we’re almost there!,” “let’s go!,” etc.
• It also provided me an opportunity to TEACH my students about communicating and working as a team.  Don’t get me wrong, there were moments when students became frustrated with one another.  However, I used those situations to remind them that they NEEDED one another to succeed and to help one another get the correct answer. 
• Furthermore, every student is accountable. No student could be lazy and not do any work (which may be likely some days during traditional instruction).  Even my students who sometimes need a push to attend to activities had no choice but to be engaged because his/her team was counting on it.

I hope this blog post provides you with clear and simple explanations of quizlet live and that the reasons why I love it encourages you to try it for yourself!