While Blooket offers its core educational games for free, premium add-ons provide expanded features for a fee. Are these upgrades worth paying for? This guide explores Blooket's paid offerings to help inform smart purchases.
Overview of Free vs Premium Blooket
The essential Blooket experience of customized learning games is free for teachers and students, with no limits. Premium subscriptions unlock supplementary content and capabilities.
Free Blooket Includes:
- All arcade-style game modes
- Custom game builder with unlimited questions
- Multiplayer classrooms and remote play
- Avatars, achievements, rewards, leaderboards
- Performance analytics and progress monitoring
- Accessibility features like audio assistance
Premium Blooket Offers:
- More avatar customization options
- Expanded avatar shop catalog
- Additional themed game packs
- More accessories and nameplate designs
- Bonus animated bundles
- Early access to new content
The free platform delivers core educational gameplay while premium provides aesthetics.
Evaluating Premium Avatar Options
One major premium component is expanded avatar content like costumes, accessories, and nameplates. These cosmetic upgrades allow players to express individuality.
Costume packs feature outfits matching different game worlds, holidays, and themes. Premium nameplates add flair when displayed on leaderboards. Accessories include toys, gadgets, and silly objects.
Premium animations add excitement and humor as well. Special bundles even allow mixing and matching layers for intricate looks.
The variety allows deep personalization. While fun and engaging, these cosmetics offer no direct learning benefits.
Assessing Premium Game Packs
Another premium offering is exclusive bundles with more game content around specific topics. These can supplement your curriculum with additional review activities.
Some current premium game packs cover:
- Coding games teaching programming concepts
- Life skills like personal finance and health
- College prep quizzes for SAT/ACT test domains
- Music education games focused on music theory
- More niche subjects like photography and fashion history
If the subject matter aligns closely with your teaching goals, premium game packs provide further reinforcement.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
Before subscribing, weigh the key pros and cons:
Potential Benefits
- Allows greater avatar personalization and expression
- Offers more themed game content for niche topics
- Early access privileges to content updates
- Supports continued platform development and costs
Potential Drawbacks
- Purely supplemental bonuses, not required functionality
- Does not improve core educational gameplay
- Individual subscriptions can get costly over time
- Students may feel left out without premium boosts
- Hard to keep up with pace of new item releases
If carefully purchasing occasional packs that align to curriculum, the extra engagement and content may provide value. But restraint is wise, as endless premium purchases add up without improving actual learning outcomes.
Teacher Tips for Managing Premium Content
When incorporating premium extras, teachers should:
- Inform students that all core functionality is completely free
- Clarify that premium provides only optional supplemental perks
- Remind students to avoid pressuring parents for unnecessary purchases
- Prevent premium envy by allowing students turns to play with special avatars
- Reward top academic performers with access to your personal premium account
Thoughtfully demystifying premium elements keeps the focus on accessible learning for all.
Conclusion
While Blooket's premium avatar shop and themed game packs provide engagement boosts, the core education platform remains entirely free. These extras simply offer more diversity of content.
Overall, Blooket strikes an effective balance between a full-featured yet accessible offering. Teachers can selectively utilize premium alongside free content while tailoring the experience for their classroom.
As with any supplemental resource, factor cost versus added value. But judiciously used, premium elements help take an already stellar learning platform to the next level.