Can we talk about…. using apps such as Padlet and Socrative to get real time assessment data that can be formative or summative.

An overview of Padlet and Socrative by Mr Turner, Year 2 Class Teacher

Padlet

https://padlet.com/auth/signup?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fpadlet.com%2Fdashboard

Essentially a virtual board for online sticky notes, this website only requires the creator of content (ie. the teacher) to have an account, whilst anyone visiting (pupils) does not require an account. Padlet enables you to set up a board (which you can name to meet your learning aim) where students can visit and add their findings by clicking anywhere on the screen to add a post-it to type into. You can then delete these at the end of a lesson, or keep to revisit in future lessons, perhaps even adding to them over time for a specific theme. When creating a board, you can select a name as well as whether or not you want posts to be moderated by yourself before being published for all to see. If you are choosing to set this as a homework, I would recommend the moderation version. You can then choose whether the board will be public or private: for school use I would recommend private. You can then share the url with the class and only they can access the board and each others’ responses. As a child adds a note to the board, it will become visible on all of the children’s screens as well as your master copy on the IWB (this will be immediate unless it requires you to moderate). An example of this in use is an English lesson I taught in which the children were given three Haiku poems and a surface with the Padlet loaded on it. They then had to write their thoughts on the poem and what they thought the rules of Haiku might be on Padlet. As other children saw each other’s responses, it stimulated their own thinking, enabling a whole class involvement in what was physically just partner discussion.

Socrative

https://b.socrative.com/login/teacher/

Again, this website only requires you to have a login. Once you have your own account you can create your own quizzes or borrow those uploaded by others. Quizzes can involve true or false questions, multiple choice questions, or questions that require a typed answer. Media such as pictures can also be added. Quizzes can be long assessment tasks, mini-plenaries, or simply one question required as an exit ticket at the end of a lesson or for quick assessment within your lesson. Once you have composed your quiz you can choose to make it live (only one at a time). As a teacher, you will need to think of a name for your virtual classroom. The children can then login here https://b.socrative.com/login/student/ by typing in your classroom name. If you have requested they provide a name (which is vital if you are relying on this for individual assessment), they will need to give this before the quiz will immediately load. On your screen (I recommend the IWB is off or frozen at this point) you will be able to see who is logged into your classroom. When setting a quiz, you can choose whether or not the children can see their results and whether or not they will be able to progress through the quiz themselves (which allows them to come back to questions later), or whether it will be teacher paced, requiring all to answer before you move everyone on to the next question. On your screen, you will be able to see which questions are being answered correctly or not and by whom. This enables on the spot assessment: which areas of learning require a whole class recap, and which areas are only in need of being addressed by specific pupils (and, if so, you now know who requires support in what area for the remainder of that lesson). This can be useful at the start of a lesson to inform it’s direction, or at the end to inform future planning. Once the test is over, you can download data in three ways: whole class analysis, question by question analysis, and individual analysis. True/false and multiple choice questions are marked by the computer, meaning your time is freed up to focus on the analysis of the assessment and what this means for targets and future planning and teaching, both for what content needs to be re-addressed on both an individual and whole class basis.