Enhancing Collaboration with Smartphone Quizzing

Socrative provides a number of interactive quizzing options

Socrative is officially described as a quiz-based web site and smartphone application, but I have watched it transform the way we do group activities in our classroom. 

You obviously start by making an account (“Teacher Sign Up”) and logging in. Socrative will assign you a virtual room number, which you will see on the main page. My number is 457893. This number is important because when students log into Socrative on their mobile devices, they need this number.

Creating a Socrative Quiz

When you are logged in, you go to the main screen. Click “Manage Quizzes” to create your quiz.  

You make a quiz using any these two traditional formats: multiple choice and short answer. What is awesome is you can provide an explanation for the answer, and they will get this feedback immediately after answering the question on their mobiles.

After creating the quiz, go to the main screen page and select “Start Quiz.” You will notice a scroll bar where all your quizzes are. The most recently made quiz is on the top, so select which ever quiz you want to run. You will notice you can randomize answers, which is nice because if you use this as a quiz you don’t have to worry about the order of the “right” answers. And you will notice “teacher paced” or “student paced” options. Teacher paced is great for a sort of “clicker” approach where you wait for all students to answer, reveal the answer and move from question to question as part of a lesson sequence.

I almost always use student paced because I usually put students in groups, ask questions related to the objective, and have students work collaboratively to answer the question. As you see in my example, it can be a grammar correction exercise, main idea of reading, or anything. Anything you could possibly quiz. These are very similar to what you have done for years; this technology is just a different platform.

Once your quiz is “live,” students log in on their mobile devices using your virtual room number. I have students download the application because I use Socrative a lot. I have them download the app as a homework assignment and run a test activity before I actually use it. But, if you would prefer, students can simply log in using the browser on the phone.

Encouraging Collaboration

The first question they answer is their name, but you can have students enter in group names and work on one phone. Putting students in groups and using ONE phone allows you to be flexible and avoid technology glitches. Some phones and their software aren’t reliable. Sometimes students are confused. Sometimes not every student has a phone. Again, all these realities are one reason why I use Socrative for group activities instead of actual quizzing or individual activities.

Then students simply answer the questions on the quiz, and then they will get the immediate feedback if you have it set up.

While you wait for the students to complete the activity/quiz, you can use a live results page to see how students are progressing. For activities this helps me know which groups to “float” to for possible help in understanding the activity or content. When all students are done, you can end the activity and debrief.

Quizzing

While I don’t use this much for actual quizzing, Socrative offers the ability to create assessments that – GASP – grade for you. Simply go to the "Manage Quizzes" page from the main screen. Once there, you “retrieve a previous quiz report," select your quiz and download (which creates a printable excel sheet) or you can “send” it to your email. You will get this sheet, and the pink boxes are incorrect answers, while the green are correct answers. There is an end column that calculates percentages, and you can cut, copy, paste boxes and numbers for your electronic grade sheet. Or, if you wanted, you could simply print it out and put it in a folder Old School style.

Exploring Socrative

Socrative is amazing, and it has enlivened my classroom in many ways. Students love using the phones instead of filling out worksheets, and if students are doing this activity (which you can track on the “live results” page,) you know students are not facebooking or text messaging (at least not the entire time ;-).

I urge you to explore Socrative and find ways to make it helpful for you. There is a new 2.0 version that includes a better interface and more user-friendly navigation. And there is a game feature called “Space Race,” which is the same quiz format, but you can organize teams and make a sort of game out of the quiz. 

Indeed, of all the education apps out there, this ranks among the best.