It's only a Socrative quiz!

I spent a lot of time thinking about which technology tool I would like to incorporate into my Technology Teach-In assignment.  At first, I considered Twitter since so many students are already familiar with it as a form of social media.  I thought it would be a fun way to integrate something they already like into a lesson that is purely educational.  However, I wanted to be mindful of those students who do not have accounts and the fact that students might need to create different accounts if they did not want to share their personal accounts with their classmates or myself.  I know I would not want to share my Twitter account with my students, so I can only imagine that they might feel the same way!  After considering a few more options, such as Padlet and Flip Quiz, I finally settled on Socrative.

The students are already very familiar with Kahoot, which is a game based tool that we use for formative assessment to review material before a quiz or a test.  Since Socrative is another way to quiz students and obtain an Excel spreadsheet with their answers, I think it would be really interesting to compare how the students perform and to see which interface they prefer.  As of right now, I do not have a specific lesson pinpointed in which I will incorporate this tool, but it will probably be about natural selection/evolution or different systems of the body, depending on when I am able to teach a lesson.  I know that Socrative has a variety of different activities, such as the Space Race, a general quiz, and an exit ticket.  For my lesson, I would like to make the most of this tool, so I intend on using the Space Race function.  From previous lessons that I have created for my students, I have noticed that they enjoy competing against each other, whether it is individually or in groups.  I will therefore assign students to groups and provide them with questions to answer, while projecting my screen on the board to show them which teams are in in the lead with answering the most questions correctly.  In a way, this is similar to Kahoot, which tells you which students are in the lead after each question.  However, I think the Space Race will demonstrate this in a more fluid manner.  I hope to also be able to use the exit ticket function during the same lesson, at the very end of class.  By using the three simple questions (i.e. have you learned something, what have you learned, and another specific question that I pose), I think I will be able to get a sense of where each individual student is at, as well as make them think about what they have learned.  I also think it could be useful to ask what they still have questions about, at this point.

I really would like to use this tool because I do not want the students to get bored of using Kahoot all the time and because it allows them to ask questions or explain their confusion without having to say it in front of the entire class.  My goal for the students is to be able to work together to correctly answer questions about the day's lesson.

One question that I do have about Socrative is whether or not the students can view their answers and the correct answers (either on their screens or me showing them on my screen).  Since I have not yet created an account or created a quiz, this will be something that I need to investigate before I implement it in the class.  If this is an option, I think it would be a good opportunity to discuss the correct answers with the students, in which groups that got a question right can explain why they chose that answer.

I think I also need to figure out how Socrative is pronounced...soh-crah-tiv...sah-crah-tiv...soh-crah-tee-vay...?