Socrative is a student - teacher clicker kind of app online that helps teachers assess their students’ knowledge. Yes this app is dedicated to classroom, provided everyone own a device. There are two separated apps, one for teachers and one for students, both are available for free on Android and IOS devices and on Socrative website. It requires student to answer questions given by teachers on their smartphones. This is a great way to judge the learning of the whole class and also, allows teachers to evaluate how effective the teaching has been. However, a Local Area Network (LAN) is desired for its use.
Students will have to download Socrative and join the room created by teachers. Here, teachers are able to run the quiz for their students to answer using their own smartphones. While it sounds very simple, the app however provides a range of different activities like Short Answer, Multiple Choice, True/False,… Students can participate in these activities as individuals or as a team. Teachers also can create a quiz for their students. At the time they take the quiz, they will have to enter their names before starting, which from the live result, teachers can check who are participating and how well they are doing. The app will later on produce a report and email it to teachers, showing all student responses. This report is well organized, with wrong answers are highlighted (while in the multiple choice section, totals are done for you). At a very quick glance, you can tell which part of a topic needs work on and which students need help from you.
One great feature I have to mention is in Short Answer mode, it does not display who answered the question. This may be useful, as there exist students who are fearful of failure and ridicule from other students. It gives them some anonymity and they can gain their confidence from that. As a teacher you can also choose “Vote on responses” so the whole class can see the results. Here, you can discuss about the good and bad answer without worrying about making students with wrong answer feel bad.
One great feature I have to mention is in Short Answer mode, it does not display who answered the question. This may be useful, as there exist students who are fearful of failure and ridicule from other students. It gives them some anonymity and they can gain their confidence from that. As a teacher you can also choose “Vote on responses” so the whole class can see the results. Here, you can discuss about the good and bad answer without worrying about making students with wrong answer feel bad.
What I love about this app is that students do not need to create their own accounts. This allows students get into the room fast and easy, which saves a lot of time that could be waste on signing up alone. Socrative is also extremely straightforward and easy to use. Although there is no question displayed, teachers can deliver their task verbally or on the board so it saves time for the class. The most special feature of it though, is the colour-coded Excel spreadsheet report. This helps teachers to effectively monitor students’ performance and therefore, make appropriate instruction for improvements.
In general, Socrative is a great learning app. You can use this to study with a tutor group for English language or any other subjects. Even if it might not be used every single day and for those students who do not own a smartphones or laptop to access the, it is undeniable an effective assessment tool to use to review lessons. The only problem I see now is not all student own their own smartphones or laptop, which is not ideal when it comes to individual learning, as they will then have to work in pairs or groups. Even though these students are the minority, teachers should bare in mind about this matter before using Socrative in class. Otherwise, for the time being, Socrative is a very nice and handy service which comes at great price – $0!