Socrative: alternative tool for classroom voting / interaction

Following my last post on the SAP Powerpoint Twitter tools, I’ve been looking at the Socrative online voting system which has been around for several years now.

As with Twitter-based voting (until that stopped working!), Socrative has the advantage by contrast with dedicated electronic voting systems (such as Turning Point which we support centrally at Loughborough) that students can respond to questions using their own mobile devices – smartphones, tablets or laptops. This means that you don’t have the hassle of booking out the equipment, distributing the handsets at the start of the lecture, and collecting them back in at the end.

It’s very easy (and free) to set up an account as a teacher, and creating and running quizzes is equally straightforward. From the students’ point of view, all they to need is navigate to http://m.socrative.com, enter the ‘room’ number you give them, and then answer each question as prompted. The only downside is that there is a limit of 50 students, although there are ways you can get round this.

I’m aware of a couple of colleagues who have already been using Socrative and hope to have an update on their experiences soon which I’ll post here.