I know that schools are pushing for more technology use and one of those ways is through student response systems, “clickers” that students can key in their responses and get instant feedback. The positive is that teachers can assess the entire class at once instead of just the one or two students that get called on per question. The negatives are the cost and, closely related, the proprietary nature of the devices. (You have to use that company’s clickers on their software.)
Socrative gets around that. This is perfect for the computer lab or a mobile lab. The teacher creates a classroom and a quiz. Socrative generates the room number. Students then go to Socrative and type in the room number. They type in their name and then are presented with the quiz.
I did my test run with a laptop and my phone, with the laptop being the teacher station. My phone showed a message that said it was waiting on the teacher. Once I was ready on the laptop, it automatically updated on my phone and I answered the sample question. The teacher station then saw what I got and started a grade report. Students don’t see how their classmates scored, which is good. They are able to see if they got the right answer if you set up the quiz to do that. There is also a game mode called Space Race where they are divided into two teams and their right answers fuel their rockets. It’s not a huge motivator, but it still beats a worksheet.
What is great is that the reports export to Excel. There is also a quiz creation template in Excel that you can import so that you can make a backup copy and not have to rely solely on an online copy. The fact that it’s free definitely helps.
With more school districts moving towards a “bring your own teachnology” policy for portable devices, I see a lot of potential for this.
