Teachers' Cheat Sheet: how to create a matching Kahoot from any text

Introduction

Doing a Kahoot in class or independently as an assignment is an enjoyable way of learning for children as well as adults. Learners will normally engage in good-natured competition, and the students who got the most answers right and answered the quickest will win one of the 5 podium positions. 

We suggest you pay the $50 or so per year to get a basic teacher's version which generates reports on students' performance. In this manner, Kahoot becomes a fully-fledged teaching tool. 

Many teachers use Kahoots created by others, which may or not fit the materials the students have been studying. Moreover, they contain errors, which are time-consuming to identify and fix. We recommend therefore that you prepare your Kahoots in Excel so that they are easy to modify and correct. With the Kahoot import template, which you can download from the site when you create new questions, this is all too easy

Step 1: generate the basic text.

Textbook sections. 

You can assess whether students understand what they read by making a matching Kahoot. Ideally, you can use a weblink that ChatGPT or similar tool will read. Alternatively, you can convert a PDF online to a text file and paste it into ChatGPT.

Lesson transcripts. 

You can use Google Meet or Zoom to record and transcribe your lessons. In Google Meet you can use an AI-powered add-on such as the Chrome extension tl;dv. In Zoom you have a recording function in the paid version. You can also record and transcribe on your Android phone with Google Live Transcribe.

Youtube transcripts. 

You can use Youtube in class, but please install an ad-blocker in order to avoid distractions. You also do not want to use videos exceeding 15 minutes. Larger videos can be chunked up in parts. 

Normally, you can download a transcript of a youtube video, using a Chrome extension such as Youtube Comment Search (YCS). Now you need to tidy up the transcript a bit, but please remember ChatGPT is not picky and will read most texts even when they are not perfectly formatted.

Method 1: Copy and paste the transcript into ChatGPT or similar, and add this prompt:

“Tidy up this transcript, removing empty lines, time stamps and symbols:”

Method 2: Use your word processor to tidy up the transcript:

In Libreoffice or Word use search and replace to:

Replace symbols: ####

Replace time stamp: Time: ([0-9][0-9]:[0-9][0-9])

Remove empty lines ^$

If it is too long, copy and paste it into a local text document and divide it in sections.

Step 2: Generate the questions, and output them in the Kahoot format.

You can download the Kahoot import template when you create a new Kahoot and add a question. 

Next, use this magic prompt, and paste the output from the earlier step into your template. If you use a model liks Claude-2 you can usually paste the whole text, because it accepts much longer prompts than ChatGPT. Save it under your preferred name and import into Kahoot. Add some images and music to your liking and you are done.

Create a set of 15 multiple choice questions for grade 9 students, for section ## (pages ## - ##)  of the file attached. Each question has only 3 answer options.

You are an expert in learning theory, specialising in retrieval practice. 

You are also an experienced high school teacher.

Tone is formal.

Temperature is precise

Leave the 5th column empty. Choose a time limit of 20 seconds for each question. Place the number of the correct answer option (1 to 4) in the 7th column. Make sure each question has a different correct answer option.

Output as an Excel table.

Here is the text:  (insert text, weblink or attach file)

"

With this method, I was able to create 3 Kahoot quizzes in 30 minutes which perfectly matched my teaching materials.

Enjoy!