In these unprecedented times, “making your own fun” has a whole new meaning. Keene State College students gather every week for Zoom trivia via “Kahoot!” for some safe and social fun.
Zoom trivia is hosted by juniors Emily Hill and Dan Brierley and is sponsored by the Night Owl Café.
“At the end of each week we have a poll on what the theme for the next week should be, and then my job is to create three different ‘Kahoot!’ rounds with questions that pertain to the theme. For instance, this week was general knowledge,” Hill said.
‘Kahoot!’ is a learning platform that mimics a game and makes it very easy to create quizzes and trivia sets. This method of learning is very popular among students.
“I think a lot of the students really enjoy it! We get a good crowd every week and I definitely notice some recurring names on my screen,” Hill said in reference to the loyal trivia-goers that have followed the event from in-person to remote, which is comforting to her as a host.
“I do enjoy hosting trivia. At first, it was difficult because I was trying to make commentary by myself and I can’t see what any of the participants look like, but I soon got used to it and I enjoy it and I hope others enjoy my rambling, too,” said Hill.
Hill’s co-host, Brierley, is in charge of handling any questions that come in through Zoom’s chat feature.
“We typically get on Zoom around twenty minutes before trivia starts to make sure the webinar is working and that the ‘Kahoot!’ works “I’m in charge of cultivating a variety of music each week and filtering through the questions that get sent in through the “Q&A” box on Zoom,” said Brierley.
Each week there are three trivia winners who receive a gift card of their choice from the options available.
“I don’t personally handle this part, but I believe they are typically $25 and the options range from Dominos to Amazon to DoorDash. The winner gets emailed the next day once we have looked over all the scores,” said Brierley. Hill said when she started at the NOC two years ago, trivia was in full swing but wasn’t as popular as it is now. “Trivia nights have been going on ever since I began working, but I remember Valerie Mamish decided to revamp it entirely and it was just received a lot better by students the second time around.”
“I really didn’t change much to be honest with you,” Mamish said, “I just told all my friends to come and talked it up to any students that asked about it. I just wanted it to be a fun experience for everyone. I wanted to make it something people looked forward to.” Mamish said trivia came to life after a student started hosting it at her internship with the student involvement center and inspired the NOC to put their own spin on it.
“I think students should participate in trivia every week because it gives you the chance to win free gift cards and allows you to get involved on campus during this weird, COVID-19 era! It doesn’t take up too much time of your night and who doesn’t love playing Kahoot?” said Brierley. For information on next week’s game, be sure to check out Keene State’s website.
Victoria Miles can be contacted at:
vmiles@kscequinox.com
