A couple years ago, another teacher asked me if I made or used Boom Cards. I sort of rolled my eyes and insisted they were too “elementary” for my high school students. But I wasn’t speaking from experience. I just made that assumption because I knew they were used in elementary and thought anything used by the lower grades would not be appropriate in the secondary classroom.
Then I investigated further and realized I was wrong. With grade-level appropriate content, graphics, and difficulty level, Boom cards are very much appropriate for high school students. And not just appropriate…but wonderful!
Like most teachers, I had a lot of questions. I did some reading, watched some videos, and saw them in use with my own son when his teacher assigned some fraction practice Boom Cards. I was in love! This is a list of frequently asked questions and their answers to help you learn about and eventually love them, too.
Q: What are Boom Cards?
A: Boom Cards are self-checking, digital, interactive task cards. (New to task cards? Read about them here!) They are like a self-checking Google Slide activity. They can be used to practice any content and have a variety of question types.
Q: What are the options for question types?
A: Question/Response options include:
- fill-in-the-blank
- multiple choice
- drag-and-drop
- matching
- open-ended (likely not self-checking)
Q: Do I need to pay for an account?
A: No! 🙂 But it may be worth it to do so. With a free teacher account, students can play the decks, but you won’t receive data or feedback on their progress. Check out the graphic below to see more features or click here to read more details about how each account works.
Q: Do I have to buy decks?
A: Nope! You certainly can buy decks to save yourself time, but there are lots of free decks on the Boom Learning website and TpT.
Q: Why do Secondary Students like Boom Cards?
- self-checking
- digital = colorful graphics
- variety of question types
- fun, game-like, interactive questions
- can play on any device
Q: Why do Secondary Teachers like Boom Cards?
- good teacher data
- self-grading
- variety of question types
- no prep
- paperless
- students like them
- accessed through BoomLearning.com, so students can play anywhere, on any device, as long as they have internet
- can play together as a class on Smart Board
- can include audio or video
- easy to differentiate
Are you super excited to try them? Or maybe you’re still not sure? Watch this video to see a couple cards in action.
Okay, now that you are pumped, let’s get Boomin’! Sign up for a free account and play around. Then talk to your principal or department chair about purchasing an account for you (so you can get the data). Check out my entire collection of Geometry decks here!
Have fun with them and your students will, too!
