Socrative

I was reluctant to hop on to the Socrative train.  For those of you unfamiliar with Socrative it is a clicker system that can be used on any device.  I was hesitant about this tool because to say I'm not a fan of test-like items is an understatement.  But then, on Saturday I attended the New England 1:1 Summit in Burlington, MA and Dan Callahan engaged his audience (me included) with this tool.

There is a lot to like about it!

• access on any device: iPod, iPad, PC, smartphone


• variety of question types: multiple choice, true/false, short answer


• students can work on their own, or teacher can lead the group


• you can prepare ahead of time, or go on the fly


• you can set it up to have just 1 right answer for immediate feedback


• download reports, view live stats


• play as a game, set up exit tickets


• can see how many have and/or who has responded

Here are some possible ways I can see myself (an anti-tester) using it

• a check-in


• workshop wrap-up


• an activity reporting tool (I used it this way today when working with Starbursts to determine area)


• collaborative notebook ~ collect students' thinking during an experiment or other inquiry


• front-load


• pre-assess

Below is the wrap-up activity the students did after using Socrative as the reporting tool.  They had to report the area in Socrative and share a picture of it on Twitter. The self-checking activity that I set up in Socrative allowed for the kiddos to independently share out their own on Twitter.

[View the story "What is Area?" on Storify]