One of the apps I am itching to try with my students this semester is one that I “field-tested” with my daughter over the break. It’s called Klikaklu, and it allows you to make scavenger hunts.
Last Christmas, I got this crazy idea to “code” all of the gifts under the tree instead of writing names on the tags. Christmas morning, my daughter had to scan each code with Aurasma, and it brought up a short video telling her who the gift was for.
I couldn’t really tell how the whole concept went over. Since it was a lot of work, and she didn’t make a big deal about it, I decided not to go to those lengths this year.
A few days before Christmas: “Mom, are you going to do that cool Aurasma thing with the gifts this year?”
All gifts were already wrapped. And tagged.
Panic.
Then I remembered Klikaklu, a scavenger hunt app I had seen mentioned on Twitter, and decided to investigate. Thank goodness for Twitter.
A few caveats before I go on to explain the app: only people who are 13 and over are supposed to create hunts using the app (but anyone can play the hunts), the app is free – but there are in-app purchases required to get all of the features for creation (in-app purchases are not required to play the full-featured version), as in Aurasma some images don’t work well for triggers, and it’s possible your school firewall may block the app (so, I would definitely test the free app before investing in the in-app purchase).
Klikaklu is similar to Aurasma in that you can use trigger images. However, the images are not linked to videos. Each image can have a clue attached it. Once a player finds an image, and matches it with a device with the app, the clue shows and then you can go on to the next image.
For my daughter’s hunt, I did a simple one using images from around the house. For each image, I input a clue with a letter. After seven images and clues, my daughter had to unscramble the letters to find her gift.
Her constant comment as she raced around the house looking for the images (the one from the lid of the washing machine was particularly challenging): “I LOVE this!” (She is 11, by the way.)
I believe that the free version allows you to create hunts with a maximum of 3 images. Hunts do not have to be indoors. You can activate the GPS portion of hunts to make a worldwide scavenger hunt if you like. (Actually, the GPS portion is already activated by default, but you can turn it off if you are a lazy mom like me creating a close-proximity, indoor hunt the night before Christmas.)
Though I don’t like in-app purchases, I did like this one. That is because I could purchase and make the hunt on my personal phone, but any iDevice with the free app can still play it. So, I can create hunts for my students to use on our school iPads without needing to go through the app-buying red tape required for volume purchases.
According to the site, the advantages of upgrading Klikaklu mean that:
- You will no longer see ads in any hunts you play.
- Any hunts you create become ad-free for players.
- You can create scavenger and staggered treasure hunts (great for groups).
- You can print out posters for events, making it easy for others to play your hunt.
The posters and the staggered hunts are what sold it to me. The poster has a QR code, so players just need to scan it to start a hunt. Staggered hunts means that I won’t have an entire class of kids all looking for the same image at once.
The site has a great FAQ section if you need help. Here is a link to a video that explains the app perfectly. By the way, Klikaklu is an iPhone app (though it also works on iPads), so be sure you have that selected if you are searching for it in the App Store.
You might to make a hunt for a Brain Break, or to review for a test, or just to scatter your students for 10 minutes while you catch your breath;) Whatever the reason, you should take a look at Klikaklu.
At the very least, you now know a great way to draw out the suspense on Christmas morning.
We bought my son a big indoor basketball game and had him use Klikaklu on his iPad (also a gift from Grandma) to find it. It was so fun. I found it difficult to use in the classroom though. Maybe if I upgrade it will work better. We have a class set of iPads and it didn’t seem to like running the app on so many at the same time. I had them sign in to a generic class account because they are all under 13. That was another problem. It still has lots of potential though if I can figure out how to get around the obstacles.
Thanks for letting me know! I will prob. try it in the next week or so, and update this post with the results.
Hi Stephanie, Klikaklu author here.
In general, for classroom usage, you should create a different account for each iPad. You would want one iPad to be the author’s, and all the others can have the user’s age set to less than 13. Klikaklu will then restrict their usage to playing only without being able to post images in their response. If you upgrade the author’s iPad to premium, the students can play for free without ads.
I’m very interested in hearing about any additional issues you have with the classroom, since we’re working right now on a new version that adds features for educators, and want to get it right. If you’ve got time, shoot me an email: ken at klikaklu.com.
Wow, it’s great to hear that you are working on an educators’ version! When do you expect that will be available?
Oops, I was a little unclear there:
– You don’t have to create accounts on each iPad for the kids. They can play anonymously without signing in (though you might want to know who did what). You do need to establish an appropriate age for the players on each iPad when you first install the app, and that is what will prevent students from creating hunts, setting a user image, or sharing images in their clue and hunt responses.
– Upgrading to premium entitles you to create hunts that anyone else can play ad-free, so that’s how students can play ad-free without you upgrading all the iPads.
We’re hoping to have a beta out next month. I’d love your feedback on it, if you’d like to be involved. If so, send me an email: ken at klikaklu.com
You got it!
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