This week, I am going to focus on another important area, online assessment in language teaching. It is a known fact that assessment enables us to measure learning and learner progress, and evaluate the efficacy of our teaching methods. There are two major forms of assessment: formative and summative. Formative assessment is continuous evaluation through pencil and paper tests, class exercises, topical tests, oral questions and answers, and performances. In summative assessment, learners are examined to show completion of a course, achievement of a qualification or advancement to the next level of a course. In this discussion, the focus is on technology-enhanced formative assessment using Socrative.
Socrative is a formative assessment tool that can help both teachers and learners to assess understanding instantly. It is an online quiz-based interactive assessment application that allows the teacher to create a variety of questions; multiple-choice, true or false and short answers and learners to respond in real-time. Besides being an assessment tool, Socrative plays a critical role in the improvement of digital communication skills between the teacher and learners.
How it Works
Socrative to both learners and teachers is accessible on iOS, Android and Chrome operated mobile devices and all web browsers. Unlike other interactive tools, Socrative requires only the teacher to open an account for free while learners only need to receive a Room Code from the teacher to access it.
Step 1: Visit the Socrative website.
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| Socrative Home Page image by Socrative.com |
Step 2: Choose a plan: Socrative Free, Socrative PRO for K-12 or Socrative PRO for Higher Ed & Corporate. Note: Socrative PRO for K-12 and Socrative PRO for Higher Ed & Corporate attract a fee.
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| Image Courtesy of Socrative.com |
Step 3: Enter your details as shown below
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| Image - Screenshot |
Step 4: Enter your Institutional Details and get creative
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| Image from: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/socrative-instruction-handout |
Key Features
How Did We Do Feature allows learners to check their own performance in the assessment. The teacher can adjust the settings to show percentages instead of responses
Common Core Standards - allow the teacher to monitor individual learners' progress
Space Race - is a collaborative mode timed quiz which measures and uses the speed of response to rank learners in a quiz.
- Cost: it is free for a room of up to 50 learners and affordable for institutions
- Accessibility: Socrative is readily accessible on mobile devices and computers
- Language Level: It is suitable for learners of all language levels
- Technical Ability: Since only teachers need to open accounts, this tool is user-friendly for all learners able to use mobile devices.
- Progress Tracking - It is difficult to track a learner's progress as student results from one assessment are not connected to the next one.
- Display: Socrative has a limited display for classroom projectors and other larger screens
- Interface Challenge: If for some reason a learner's dashboard becomes unresponsive, he or she has to log back in instead of continuing from the previous activity.
- Communicative Lapses: The tool cannot warn the teacher or learner when performance is going down. the
Conclusion
Socrative is an amazing tool that can save us a lot of time from marking books and tests especially those of us with large classrooms. We can use it to ass learners during or after the lesson and provide feedback to them in real-time. Because of the school rules against cell phones and other mobile devices in our schools, it would be advisable to use school computer lab desktop machines to enjoy the benefits of this tool. I hope you will find time to try it out like I did in this link, the Room Code is 65890965. Let me know how it goes in the comments below. You can also watch the video below to learn more.
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