I’ve been delivering INSET this week around making educational use of the excellent ‘Socrative‘. At it’s simplest, Socrative is an online quiz maker. It allows a teacher to broadcast questions to the members of their virtual ‘classroom’ and collect responses in real time. Children can connect to the online ‘room’ by simply going to the Socrative website or loading the Socrative iPad app and typing the room name/number to enter. Because no login is required, it’s really quick to get children connected and versatile enough to be used with any group of children or adults.
Quizzes, as they are called, can be simple, ad hoc ones, or they can be pre-designed or even imported and shared through a hashtag number with other users. A quiz can contain a mixture of true/false, multiple choice or text based questions and answers and graphics can be added. It can be completed at either ‘student pace’ (which means the child will submit an answer and receive the next question immediately), or ‘teacher paced’ (where the teacher click’s ‘next’ when enough responses have been collected, and the next question is then broadcast). Multiple choice questions can be set up so that the correct answer is identified and, if a child selects an incorrect answer, then ‘explanation’ feedback is then given. Alternatively, the system can be used just to collect responses which are neither right or wrong.
At the end of a session, the teacher can then download response data in a number of formats for analysis.
It has its uses for collecting student understanding both before and after teaching, and children love using it. But, perhaps its best use is for collecting written responses to prompts in English lessons. Children’s thoughts and ideas can be projected instantly onto the board for discussion and manipulation.
If you would like training on this excellent system, please contact me.