Blooket has become one of the most popular educational game platforms used in classrooms today. This web-based learning tool allows teachers to transform traditional studying into entertaining, arcade-style games that fully captivate and engage students.
What is Blooket?
Blooket is a game-based learning platform accessible online from any device. Teachers can use Blooket's extensive library of pre-made games covering math, reading, science, social studies, coding, and more.
In addition, educators can build completely custom games featuring their own review questions tailored to current curriculum and lessons.
Some of the most popular Blooket game modes include:
- Gold Quest - Earn gold tokens from correct answers to buy power-ups
- Crypto - Buy, sell, and trade crypto tokens in a simulated market
- Racing - Speed around a track by answering questions quickly
- Tower Defense - Stop invaders by answering math questions
- Café - Manage a café by taking customer orders based on logic
- Factory - Keep production moving by solving word problems
- Climb the Tower - Clear educational mini-games on each floor to rise up
- Nightmare - Survive monsters using weapons powered by knowledge
Once created, teachers provide students with a unique game code to input on Blooket to join the lobby. Games can be played instantly with any internet-connected device.
Benefits for Educators
Integrating Blooket games into instruction provides many benefits:
- Makes learning more exciting and interactive for digital-native students
- Increases student engagement, motivation, and focus on material
- Allows game-based formative assessment of comprehension
- Differentiates easily by assigning games based on ability level
- Generates student progress reports and class/student analytics
- Reinforces concepts, vocabulary, and skills through entertainment
- Provides rewards and sense of achievement to promote learning behaviors
- Taps into game-based learning research showing improved outcomes
Implementing Blooket
Here are some tips for effectively leveraging Blooket:
- Demo games to students early on so they get familiar with the platform
- Weave Blooket into existing curriculum as review and reinforcement
- Build custom games aligned to what you are currently teaching
- Use games as formative assessments to gauge student understanding
- Incentivize with prizes or rewards for top performers
- Monitor stats to identify struggling students who need intervention
- Remind students to learn from question explanations when wrong
- Assure games are for fun learning, not high-pressure formal testing
Blooket integrates smoothly into instruction as game-based supplementary activities. Short 5-10 minute games can be used as:
- Warm-ups to introduce or review a lesson
- Learning stations or centers during class
- Rewards for good behavior/performance
- Formative quizzes to assess understanding
- Recap activities to wrap up a lesson
- Fun homework/remote assignments
- Test preps to reinforce knowledge retention
Custom Game Creation
One of Blooket’s most powerful features is the ability for educators to build completely customized games.
To create your own tailored games:
- Select the “Build” tab when logged into your teacher account
- Pick a game template like Gold Quest, Crypto, Racing, etc
- Customize aesthetics like colors, avatars, graphics, etc
- Input your own curated review questions and answers
- Set options like number of rounds, timers, passwords, etc
- Save the game and share code to play instantly
This allows endless possibilities to design games that align to current instructional goals with your own questions. Students join custom games the same way as official Blooket titles.
Ideas for Custom Games
Blooket’s custom game builder allows teachers to reinforce any subject or topic. Here are some creative ideas:
Vocabulary/Spelling Games
Create games focused on spelling bee-style questions or identifying vocabulary definitions. Display words, scramble letters, provide definitions, and force memorization through fun repetition.
Reading Comprehension
Pull key details, events, characters, or vocabulary from a class novel or reading. Have students identify plot points, make inferences, describe relationships between characters, or sequence events.
Historical Events/Figures
Reinforce knowledge on individuals, groups, dates, and significance of major events. Use visuals paired with questions to help timeline and contextualize history.
Foreign Language Practice
Display vocabulary terms in the foreign language and have students select English translations. Or provide English clues or images and ask for the foreign vocabulary.
Music Theory
Teach music fundamentals like note reading, rhythm counting, identifying scales/chords, instrument families, composer knowledge, and more through interactive games.
Science Concepts
Review key science concepts like steps of the scientific method, organ systems, layers of the Earth, biomes, types of rocks, Newton’s laws, and more using visuals, diagrams, and definitions.
The possibilities are truly endless for reinforcing any subject material in a game format learners love.
Playing Blooket Games
From the student perspective, playing Blooket games is intuitive:
- Students enter the game code provided by the teacher
- Pick a fun avatar and username
- Answer multiple choice questions each round
- Earn points for correct answers to gain levels
- Use powerups or advantages won by high performance
- Receive instant feedback on wrong answers to learn
- Track progress on leaderboards
- Chat with classmates in game lobbies
The variety of game formats keeps the experience novel and challenging across multiple plays. Students never know what new games the teacher will have in store.
Benefits for Students
Blooket is loved by students because:
- Game-based learning is more engaging than traditional lectures or worksheets
- Playing games in class feels like a reward rather than forced practice
- Friendly competition with peers provides motivation to excel
- Silly avatars, animations and sounds create an immersive experience
- Instant feedback allows self-assessment of progress and comprehension
- Unlocking achievements and customizations promotes a sense of accomplishment
- Can be played anywhere with internet access via the website or app
The platform makes studying feel like playing instead of work. This increases student enjoyment along with information retention.
Conclusion
Blooket empowers educators to make supplemental learning activities more fun and effective. Students are immersed in game experiences that boost engagement with material.
The ability to build customized games tailored to current instructional objectives takes the platform to the next level. Blooket integrates seamlessly into existing curriculum while delivering the benefits of game-based learning approaches.
With the rise of educational gaming, expect Blooket to continue growing as a classroom staple for digitally native generations. The future looks bright for platforms that merge education and entertainment.
