Activity 5: Assessment/Polling & Data Gathering Part 1

With "formative" and "summative" assessment terms being thrown around the educational landscape like Star Trek references at a Pocket Protector sales event, this week's exercise will focus on Web 2.0 tools that allow you to gather valuable information from your students and colleagues. Nerds love gathering data!

You can use these tools as informal exit slips to assess comprehension, as a formative assessment, as a formal pre or post assessment tool, to review for an upcoming quiz, or even to schedule a meeting day and time that works for your PLC.  Here are some examples:
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Student Response Systems

The following sites offer a variety of ways to gather information from students.  Each has their positives and negatives and each can be used in various ways in the classroom.  They following are just a few that work well in the classroom.   

Socrative
Socrative is a site that allows teachers to create quizzes, short answer questions, and exit tickets.  For creating quizzes there are better options like Google Forms, but for creating short answer questions and using pre-made exit tickets it is the best.  The videos below cover the short answer and exit ticket options.  
1. Introduction to Socrative

2. Short Answer Questions in Socrative

3. Exit Tickets in Socrative

Dotstorming
Dotstorming allows students to post their responses to questions and they appear in a grid you can display to the class.  They can then respond to each other posts, and respond to those responses.  You can then have students vote on those responses they liked most, or thought were most interesting, or just want to talk more about.  

Padlet
Padlet is similar to Dotstorming but allows students a wider variety of how to respond to questions.  Students can respond with a video, picture, song, etc.  Their answers can be arranged on a shared grid and students can then post responses to these posts.  

Games

In addition to your traditional student response systems, one way to involve students in more interactive lessons.  While not something you may use everyday, the games are a great way to use gamification to increase student engagement. The following are a few examples that can be used in your classroom.  

Kahoot
If you have ever gone to a restaurant to play that sci-fi trivia game (my username is CylonSerenity, check me out on the leaderboard) where the point values decrease as time goes on then you know how Kahoot works.  You can create a Kahoot or find Kahoots that have been made by others, edit them, and use them in your classes.  The video below is a tutorial on setting up and using quizlet live. 



Quizlet Live
Unlike Kahoot, which at times can be a very independent gaming experience, quizlet live has students work in groups to answer questions.  Like Kahoot, you can make your own bank of questions or you can choose from literally millions of other question banks created by others.  The video below is a tutorial on setting up and using quizlet live. 

Quizziz
Quizziz is somewhat of a combination of quizlet live and kahoot.  Students work individually to see who can score the highest score.  The one thing that makes the game different and maybe more entertaining is it includes memes that are very fun.  You can even upload your own memes if you like.  The video below is a tutorial on setting up and using quizziz.  

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To Complete Activity 7:

1. Pick two tools and create two products you can use with your students or colleagues. Embed/share them in your blog post and reflect on the process and how you might use these tools at school.  Try to make it so other nerds can complete your activity.
2. Record a screencast reviewing one of the above two  tools you posted about.  Explain how you think you could use it and what you see as the pros and cons of the tool.  Make sure you either link to your video or embed it in your blog.  
3. Complete two other nerd's assessments and reflect on your experience.  What is the student experience like for each product or service?  
4. Make sure to comment on 3 other nerds' blogs!

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Further Investigation

There are many additional tools that you can use for formative assessment. Below is a list of a few additional resources.

Quizlet: Create flash cards that can be used for practice, creating practice games and activities, and creating assessments.  Students can also use Quizlet to create their own flash cards.

Exit Ticket: This is another powerful student response system

Mastery Manager: Is used for district assessments and can also be used for individual teacher assessments.  The most basic assessments in Mastery Manager are simply pdf versions of a test that is uploaded into Mastery Manger to create an online version of the assessment.  You can also use Mastery Manger to tie standards to tests and quizzes.

Here is a link to even more formative assessment tools.  This list is provided by Common Sense Media.