Thursday, October 2, 2014

Professional Journal #7 - (Google Drive) Socrative


1.  RESOURCE  Socrative – www.socrative.com

2.  LIKED – There was so much I liked about this tool that I immediately started working with it as I learned about it.  I like that it is interactive and provides the teacher live feedback, allowing the teacher to see student responses in real time.  It allows teachers to get a quick picture of student learning and engagement during or after a lesson (multiple choice quiz or exit slip) or a more in-depth assessment (in-depth quiz with short answers).  Teacher control (anonymous, immediate student feedback, etc.) is a key component of the tool.  The reports after assessment are informative and allows for quick and easy data recording.

DISLIKED – I am still getting to know Socrative, but found it confusing that there were no FAQs or tutorials after the teacher log-in page/dashboard.  The only way I found to get more information was to go back out and into the original home page at socrative.com.  It would make sense to me if there were links to guides, tutorials or FAQs on the bottom of the log-in page.  Perhaps they want the teacher page to be dedicated to assessment only. If so, mission accomplished. 

3.  SUMMARY  There were quite a few things I was unable to figure out on my own because of the dislike noted above.  However, once I found the tutorials and videos, I found them incredibly helpful.  I was able to create an account.  I also created an assessment tied to my student growth goal which I plan to give to students in just a few weeks.  I also tried the student side of things and logged in as a student on our home computer while monitoring student activity on my laptop.  I am incredibly impressed by the ease of pulling together the assessment, tracking student engagement and the reporting.  I am excited about the simplicity of student log in and participation.  I really want to get into Google forms and Google docs, but the fact that my students don’t have emails at an elementary level really makes that a challenge.  I don’t have to worry with Socrative.  There is a great deal I still want to explore and will likely start with checking out the user guide in detail.  I already emailed my 2 principals and the curriculum director about it and can’t wait to share Socrative with staff.

4.  FUTURE USE – As mentioned, I plan to use Socrative with my students both before and after (possibly during) a cyberbullying unit that I teach in the LRC.  As far as managing and promoting the library, I see many possibilities.  Socrative could be used as pre and post assessments of library skills. It can be used to survey student interest to build the library inventory and understand which authors, genres or specific books students are interested in reading.  Socrative can also be used to survey teachers and understand what they need in terms of resources and collaboration.  I can’t wait to start using Socrative. 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment