Socrative

The next Web2.0 tool to be reviewed is Socrative.  Socrative is an online assessment and student response tool.  The newest version of it was released in July 2014 and it is a device agnostic tool which means that it is independent of any machine.  On a practical level that means that students can accessed it through a range of devices such as tablets, smart phones or iPads.   Many teachers are discovering that smart phones are very versatile and useful in supporting students learning as students use them well and they encourage independent and collaborative learning (Kolb 2011).  The teachers would probably access Socrative in the more traditional way of using a web browser.

In a way Socrative is the next step from earlier classroom voting systems such as Promethean's Activote or SMART's Response.  Having worked with both of these systems and supported teachers to use them, Socrative is much easier and quicker to set up.  Both the Activote and Response were quite time consuming and initially unintuitive for teachers to use.  These meant that teachers were less likely to use them without support.  In fact in one Barnsley school they become nothing more that very expensive dust collectors!

Socrative is very intuitive and the latest version has a very simple and easy to access interface, and it's free.

(screen capture of the teacher dashboard from Socrative)

The reasons for the selection of Socrative are :

• detailed feedback from students responses
• ease and simplicity of use
• motivation and engagement of students
• opportunities to develop active learning  (Méndez Coca & Slisko 2013).

The detailed feedback can very quickly by displayed on the screen for the teacher to analyse (see image below) and it clearly shows how successful in the answering the questions the students have been.  The student's names can be hidden as well which is a very handy feature to limit the potential embarrassment for some quieter, less confident students.  The scores can also be exported as MS Excel files.  Activities can be either teacher-paced (for use during a class discussion) or student paced (for use as a more traditional quiz).  As well as these settings there is also an immediate feedback option for the students so that they can assess how well they have done individually (Ozdeniz 2012).  The 'Space Race' feature allows teams of students to compete against one another to launch rockets into space.  This feature can help to promote competition and collaboration within the class as well (Deichman 2014).  

(screen capture of the student's score)

As can be seen from the dashboard navigating the site is very straightforward.  Creating quizzes is also easy to do just enter the title and the site guides you through the different types of questions you can create either multi choice, true/false or short answer.  It really has been simplified to make it very user friendly and quick to set up.

Early class voting sets were not all bad and major positive that was noted when supporting schools with Activote and Response was the increased level of student engagement that they generated.  The students found them appealing, fun to use and it gave everybody the chance to answer the question (or you might say it forced every one to answer the question posed).  Socrative has been found to engage and motivate pupils in the same way and it made students aware of their knowledge and thinking (Méndez Coca & Slisko 2013; Deichman 2014).  The discussion generated from either the immediate feedback or teacher led feedback create excellent opportunities for the students to become actively involved in dialogues about their answers or opinions.   

Recently Socrative was used with a small group of undergraduate QTS students who had recently completed their second teaching placement.  It was used to firstly demonstrate the resource and how easy it was to use but also to capture their knowledge about the current computing curriculum in primary schools.  From the answers given, the initial input was then able to be pitched at the right level, any misconceptions quickly clarified and all the students started from the same knowledge base.  This was very beneficial for both the tutor and the students.  Further opportunities to do these quick initial assessments would only strengthen the argument for all taught sessions to use this tool.  It could also be used at other times of the session to capture the learning and bring to the surface any misconceptions especially when the students become withdrawn and quiet.

Potential drawbacks of the tool are students not having a smart phone with them (which is highly unlikely but still a possibility), the internet connection being lost or other technical problems.  Obviously poorly phrased questions would not help gather any relevant information, and it would be the tutor's job to ensure that the quiz was appropriate for the taught content.

References

Deichman, J 2014, 'Socrative 2.0', Knowledge Quest, 43, 2, pp. 72-73, Education Research Complete

Kolb, L 2011, 'Adventures with Cell Phones', Educational Leadership, 68, 5, pp. 39-43, Education Research Complete.

Méndez Coca, D, & Slisko, J 2013, 'Software "Socrative" and Smartphones as Tools for Implementation of Basic Processes of Active Physics Learning in Classroom: An Initial Feasibility Study with Prospective Teachers', European Journal Of Physics Education, 4, 2, pp. 17-24

Ozdeniz, DM 2012, 'Apps for Learning with iPads', Perspectives (TESOL Arabia), 19, 3, pp. 28-30, Education Research Complete.