I TIED 3 STUDENT RESPONSE SYSTEMS AND RATED THEM
I TIED 3 STUDENT RESPONSE SYSTEMS AND RATED THEM
Tech and Education
Bailey Sheridan 4/5/2021
First off: What are Student Response Systems?
Student response systems are tools teachers can use to check the student’s understanding of a given topic. They help the teachers see if the class or certain students need to review or relearn something.
Tools like Kahoot games and google classroom questions, are examples of SRS’s. They are a great way to give quick formative assessments of the students' knowledge. This helps teachers to know what the student needs to work on or not. These SRS tools can be on and off line. Exit tickets are usually done offline to summarize a lesson. Why not do them online with a SRS tool too?
Why Use SRS?
From Exit Tickets, formative assessment and just reviewing SRS tools are really helpful and fun for both students and teachers. Not to mention they are easy to make and do. No more over complicated slides and games, just fill in games, like kahoot. And let students have fun and test their knowledge.
The 3 I tried
Formative is like google classroom in the idea, except with a blank canvas. By that I mean Formative gives the teachers a lot of things to build in their feed, all using their app. No dragging and dropping docs and worksheets here. In formative you can create so many ways to assess and gage students' understanding of all topics.
Below you can see all the things teachers can create using formative. In Addition the how the questions look.
Formative is free with a Microsoft, google, or clever account to access. It is safe and easy to use for both students and teachers. However schools who pay for it unlock bonus features, that might be helpful to have.
My favorite parts of the app:
The easiness to create and use
Easy join codes or link sharing for students
The whiteboard function where students can write on an image or worksheet copied and pasted in the app, like a google Jamboard,
The ability to pin standards into lessons and topics
Student view and teacher view.
Overall Formative is a great tool to use for both SRS and homework/lessons in school or at home. It makes it easy for teachers to set up with everything in the app for them. My only complaint is, it is a lot to learn, however most wonderful things in life have a learning curve. And I think some of the features in premium should be free, like there are in google. Which is why I gave it ⅘ stars. It beat google on some other things, like the standards and student view features through.
Overall fabulous app.
Check out my practice formative here:
Join code: 8K9729
Or
https://goformative.com/formatives/605b6fdb430268ee4830fded
Poll Everywhere is my favorite SRS because it is simple and perfect. It is an app and website that is used for quick formative assessment like questions, to gage students' understanding. Like Formative there are many question types that teachers can create with. It is easier to use then Formative, and more mobile deceive friendly.
Below is the option to create a poll:
My teachers in high school and at Trinity used Poll everywhere to open up discussion or test us on what we as a class knew about the topic. It is easy to share with a link or by text the code with a phone. The easy access is convenient for students to open and use the app, with whatever tech they have available. My favorite part of poll Everywhere is the word cloud because it combines everyone's ideas and opens up a conversion. I think in addition to testing students' knowledge it could be used as a bell ringer to start the students' thinking. Poll Everywhere is simple, fun and multi-useful making it the best SRS I found yet.
Want a great demo for using Poll Everywhere?
Check out this tutorial My friend Jeffrey and I made for Tech and ed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVm50S1maIY
Slido is very similar to Poll Everywhere, in fact one may say they are the same thing. However they do have some differences. Slido, like Poll Everywhere is a SRS tool where you can make questions and word clouds. However Slido has something that Poll Everywhere doesn’t--easy presentation. Slido is built to be presented and open conversions, they even have a “questions” part. This is a really nice feature for teachers. Students can type the questions and not have to say them out loud which can be intimidating for them at times. The building of the questions is almost the same, but with a new feature. Rating. Rating and ranking can help teachers gage their student's comfort on a topic which is important. Like Poll Everywhere the activation and locking is also there. However there isn’t a student view that I found. The easy building and presentation with Google slides of PowerPoint makes it a great SRS. Not to mention joining with a code or barcode given in the presentation. I really like the professional look and the ease of presenting it, which is why I gave it a 5 star too.
Below is a Poll I created with Slido:
Ranking
I prefer simple SRS like Poll Everywhere or Slido. I liked formative too but I think it would be good for taking tests and quizzes or lessons. Polls like Poll Everywhere and Slido are simple, quick and great for opening or closing conversations about lessons. Poll Everywhere is my favorite because it was the easiest to learn and it has a student view. Also the texting with Poll everywhere is another great part I enjoyed.
Overall all 3 of these are awesome tools to know about and try to help gage what kids need to learn or don’t. A great way to give kids a voice in their learning.
Thank you for reading, happy learning.
Bailey Sheridan
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