Socrative

Socrative
Online - Educational Service - Digital Learning Tool

https://www.socrative.com/

Socrative Logo

Digital Formative Assessments That Are Fun & Engaging

(Ratings: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 = Worst and 10 = Best)
Overall: 8
Service: 9
Ease Of Use: 9
Stability: 10
Features & Functions: 7

Pricing:
Guest: Free
Pro (Individual Account): SGD $82 per year

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Socrative is a free online formative assessment service, which is designed for use by educators / trainers / facilitators during a face-to-face class or course. It enables formative assessments to be easily created and administered in a fun and engaging manner, yet allows the educator to gauge the individual learner's understanding and comprehension of the subject matter in real-time. Founded in September 2010, Socrative has gained acclaim for its ease of use, and its effectiveness in enhancing class / course engagement and learning.

Essentially, Socrative is a classroom app which empowers an educator to quickly create and administer quizzes, pose questions, or conduct polls. Learners then respond accordingly in real-time, and through result aggregation and visualization via a report, allows instant insight into levels of understanding. Socrative is fairly easy to use and has stable connectivity, only needing a computer with an internet connection and a web browser. Able to operate on most browser or mobile platforms, the guest (free) version can accommodate up to 50 learners in a single virtual classroom. The pro (paid) version goes further, with up to 150 learners per virtual classroom, able to host up to 10 virtual classrooms simultaneously, a countdown timer for quizzes, and roster import.

Socrative Landing Page

The main features of Socrative are the quiz creator, the 4 options for administering a quiz (Standard Quiz, Space Race, Exit Ticket, Quick Question), and the result report. The quiz creator allows educators to set multiple choice, short answer, or true / false questions, with the option of providing an explanation for the answer. When administering a quiz, the Standard Quiz format displays a grid of learners, which fills up in colour as they answer the questions. The Space Race format adds a competitive element, where learners compete in teams to complete the quiz. The Exit Ticket format is for end-of-class feedback, while the Quick Question format allows for ad-hoc questions and polls to check understanding. Finally, the result report is a chart which displays the overall class results, and allows for deeper analysis of each question and answer. You can also export this for later use.

There are some minor drawbacks to Socrative, largely beyond the actual platform itself. Its objective is narrow - to administer formative assessments, with all its features created to achieve this, meaning it's difficult to repurpose it for other means. A lack of a timed element to begin a quiz / question, means you have to physically instruct learners to wait until everyone else is ready. Also, the usage of Socrative must be facilitator-led / instructor-led, the nature of this digital learning tool requires an educator to be physically present, and the results must be shown to the class because of the element of competition. In addition, as learners typically access this via their portable devices, a proper plan is needed on how, when, and where the usage is permitted, in order to avoid distraction.

There are a variety of situations to use Socrative to aid education / corporate learning, as a digital learning tool. Personally, I've used it for a fun and engaging formative assessment about mid-way through a class / course, in order to identify if learners have gained the necessary knowledge. I've also used it for end-of-day learning reviews, and to encourage learner participation during the class by having the competing teams accumulate points. It can also be used to examine a particular topic in greater depth, through analysis of the learner's answers.