Teachers in my district had been looking for a well-integrated student response system for checks-for-understanding. For those teachers who are at or nearing a 1:1 model, I did some research into some SRS models that might work for those technologically-advanced classrooms. Our district is Google Apps For Education deployed, so Google Forms immediately spoke to me. As evidenced in my homemade document camera, I think I have a propensity towards DIY; something that isn't always best to run with. While we could build and share a template database of CFU back-ends for use by district teachers, I don't think the end-result would be elegant enough for my tastes, nor intuitive enough for the majority of our teachers.
I came across costly options like Poll Everywhere, which admittedly does look like an amazing tool. I also saw plenty of reviews of hardware dependent SRS systems. We even have a couple Promethean clicker kits deployed in our district. I kept looking, hoping for something that could be accessed via wide variety of devices. We only have one 1:1 tablet classroom in our district, so something that worked through a web browser would be best. This brought me to Socrative. Below, I've bolded and detailed some of the features which make it a tool that teachers in my district are excited to start using.
I really liked that Socrative is accessible through so many different devices. If our district decides to expand its tablet coverage it will start with teacher devices. In the meantime, I really like that we can access Socrative through our numerous laptops, netbooks, and desktops. Clickers that support interactive whiteboards and tablet-based SRS's are fine, but the breadth of device support included within Socrative is powerful. Whether our teachers are managing the virtual classroom from a tablet or desktop/laptop functionality and access is maintained. Similarly, a student who has been issued a tablet could interact seamlessly with a classroom of students using laptops from a cart.
Another feature that stands out to me is something that Socrative doesn't have: individual student accounts. This might seem like a con, but I think that the ease with which a teacher can deploy Socrative is maintained by not including this feature. A teacher simply creates a virtual classroom which students join. Upon joining, a student gives there name. With robust procedures and appropriate behavior expectations, I think that students can be expected to reliably enter their actual name. Time spent modeling and maintaining these behavior expectations would be far less than time spent waiting for students to find their exact device or enter their exact log-in credentials. Further, there are no passwords for students to forget or new accounts to create when a student is added to a class.
Socrative offers a variety of graphs of student answers. As I said before, these graphs could be pre-made in a Google Forms template database. Again, efficiency and ease of use are paramount, and I think Socrative does a nice job of providing this data with minimal front-loading by the teacher.
Finally, I really enjoy that Socrative allow the teacher to choose whether or not to control the pace at which CFU questions are given to students. In my classroom, I often presented my quizzes and CFU questions via a document camera or projected .pdf file so that I could prevent students from rushing. In Socrative, the teacher can allow the next question to appear as soon as the student submits the previous one, or deploy the next question at a time of their choosing.
We're excited to get started with Socrative in my district. If you are able to put it to use in your classroom, leave some comments about your thoughts.
