Recently, my colleague and I have been using the website Socrative to do reviews and even real quizzes with our classes. As part of our BYOD initiative, most students have some sort of device with internet on it, whether it's a smart phone, laptop, tablet, or iPod. Teachers can create a quiz, then go to t.socrative.com to start it. Students go to m.socrative.com and log into your "room number," a random six-digit number assigned by the website. Once signed in, students can take the quiz on their own devices. Teachers can choose a "student-paced quiz," which allows students to answer questions at their own pace, or a "teacher-paced quiz" which allows the teacher to send questions one at a time. Here is an example of a Socrative quiz I did just today with my class.
Students were given this sheet - a conversation missing several vocab expressions:
Students then answered questions one a time on their own devices:
I chose a teacher-paced quiz, so I sent the questions one at a time and students answered. Socrative shows the live results, so for example, on one question I saw that 6 students chose an incorrect answer. I was able to address that with the class and we discussed why it was not the best choice. This was great for our quiz review today!
Give Socrative a try!
Cristin,
ReplyDeleteDoes your school have a BYOD policy? I am wondering about the use of a tool such as Socrative when there is either a lack of computers or the students don't all have access. How do you do it? I remember doing this with Nicole last semester and it seems like a great tool.
Brian
Yes, I learned about Socrative in another tech class but we used computers, which is less convenient with a full classroom. We have a BYOD policy, and I actually used Celly (see previous post) to tell students to bring their devices to class that day. All students were able to take the quiz on their own device, and those that didn't have them that day simply paired up with a friend.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for blogging about Socrative Cristin. I sometimes use Senteo but it's a bit cumbersome as one must allow time at the beginning of class to distribute the clickers and ensure that they are all calibrated and working. It would seem that Socrative would be a lot easier and efficient to deploy in the classroom and I do want to give it a try before the school year is out.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a fun idea! Let me attempt this...
ReplyDeletej'ai prend francais pour huit ans et j'dore a vu que tu faire avec les etudiants.
Haha... it has been 8 years since I've tried to read/write anything in French.
Anyways, is there a no cell phone policy in your school? If so, how do you get around letting them use it in the classroom?
Hi Cassandra - le français n'est pas mal!
DeleteSorry for the delayed response - we did have a no cell phone policy at school, but we recently launched a "Bring Your Own Device" program at school, which includes cell phones. Therefore, they are allowed to use them for educational purposes but are not to text, play games, etc. Usually I tell them they need to have their devices away unless they are taking notes on it or we are doing research (or of course if we do an activity like this).
Cristin, this is awesome! I'm sure your students had a blast with it as well. Even when you try traditional review activities on the fun side, some students still aren't engaged. I feel as though this would spice up review day for sure! Thanks for the share.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of using socrative with my students. Last year we had some practice with it in another technology class that I took here at USJ. I thought it was really engaging and a nice change of pace to the traditional quiz of paper/pencil. I'm sure your students prefer it, too.
ReplyDelete