Socrative

Introducing Socrative

Socrative is a fairly new product to the classroom, but it is one that no teacher should pass up on, so this tutorial is here to make it easier on all teachers to engage their classes in debates, competitions, discussions, even quizzes.

Developed in 2011, the Socrative app has made the use of Socrative's product (easily accessible on Socrative.com from any device with internet access if not through iOS) simpler and more convenient to use in today's classroom. Socrative allows teachers to conduct classsroom polls, quizzes, debates, discussions, and more all through an interactive app used inside or outside the classroom.

Signing In

To start, go to the Socrative website or the iOS app on your iPod, iPhone, or iPad. Click on Teacher Sign In. If you have already created an account, go ahead and input your log in information. If you haven't created an account yet, you must do that first by providing a little big of basic information, and Socrative will then assign you a virtual room number (you can change this later if you want to). Signing up takes a matter of seconds and is very simple.

Your students can sign in on computers, tablets, smartphones, or anything else with web access (any of them with an iPod, iPad, or iPhone can download the iOS app). Their log in screen will look like this. At this point, they can type in the virtual room number that was assigned to you, and this will connect them to your virtual classroom.

Using Socrative

This is your main screen, where you can see all that you have access to with the Socrative application.

You can do any in-class activities or you can actually use if for assessments. If you are in a school/classroom with access to a computer projector screen/Smartboard/Promethean Board, you could actually project this page up on the screen for your students to see.

Multiple Choice

Once you click on Multiple Choice on your main screen, you will then be able to ask your students a question our loud or by writing it on the board or passing it out on a sheet of paper, or however oyu see fit. Your screen waits while your students' screen shows this...

Each student then submits their answer, and you, the teacher, get a page of results that looks like this...

This screen tells you how many students voted total, and how many students voted on each different choice, but it does NOT tell you who each student is. This is a great opportunity for the teacher to see how well their students understand the material without cold-calling on students or having to give a quiz. This also provides an opportunity to have a whole-class discussion about questions without calling specific students out.

True/False

The True/False section of questioning works like the Multiple Choice section. Students are prompted the same way, and the teacher receives a similar looking chart.

Short Answer

The third option for Single Question Activities is Short Answer. When you click on this, you will come to the same waiting screen that you have for the other two question types. Your students are given a screen with a space for typing, where they will fill in their answers on their device...

Their answers then pop up on the teacher's screen as they come in...

Students can then vote on their favorite answers or the answer that they think is best in the class - all still without knowing what student said which answer.

Space Race

This is an activity where students can compete with each other individually or on teams. Each team is assigned a color and is prompted to put in their names.

On the teacher's screen, the teams' competing rocket ships show up...

The teams answer questions as they show up on their devices. Socrative then tracks the students' progress through the race, and will eventually show who the winning team is.

At this point, the teacher will be prompted to see the results. They can be downloaded or emailed.

If you download them directly, they will pop up in an Excel spreadsheet immediately, with a breakdown of how each team/student did, what questions they got right or wrong, and their final score.

Creating a Quiz

Socrative allows you to create, save, and edit as many quizzes as you want/need to.

To start, on the main screen, go to Manage Quizzes.

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From this screen, you can create a new quiz or import one you already have saved elsewhere. you can also return to this page to edit previously created quizzes, or retrieve score reports from quizzes already given.

Click on Create a Quiz to make a new quiz. Once you are in the Create a Quiz screen, you can start adding either multiple choice or short answer questions and their answers to your quiz.

Once you have finished creating the quiz, you can save it and start it up for your students to take.

Start Quiz

When you go to give your students a quiz, you will be brought to a screen where you can choose from all of the quizzes you have created or imported on Socrative. Once you select the quiz you want to give and click start, your students can begin taking the quiz on their devices. First, students will be prompted to provide their names.

Next, students will be asked the questions you have created for the quiz and will either be given options to choose from or a space to type in their answers.

As students are taking the quiz, teacher can look at the Live Quiz Results

Once the quiz is finished, the teacher will be asked if they want to download the score report or if they want to email it again. If you choose to email it instead of download it, the process works similarly. Socrative sends the report to your provided log in email address with the report attached to the email as a spreadsheet document.

Socrative allows you to change any information (email address, password, personal information, and virtual room number) in the My Profile screen.

Socrative is an interactive app that is accessible so easily in the classroom on any device with web access. It is something different and fun for students to be doing in a classroom while they are still taking in the same information they would be from a cold-call class discussion or a basic pencil and paper quiz. Students are more engaged and interested with use of Socrative in the classroom.