Google Forms & Flubaroo, Socrative, Kahoot, and Padlet (Things 25-28)

Formative assessment and I have a complicated relationship. On one hand, I love it for the information it provides me and my students and for the fact that it keeps me updated on their progress in a much quicker, more easily accessible way than summative assessments do. On the other hand, I sometimes get overwhelmed by the management of formative assessments and feel guilty that I don't do them often enough or use the information quickly enough after I get it.

I think I need to revisit how and why I use formative assessment, and I also need to expand my definition of what formative assessment actually is. I mentioned on the Padlet response that my definition in practice can be quite narrow: I think of formative assessment as exit slips. Because of that, I end up with hundreds of little slips of paper (Post-its, index cards, scraps of reused paper, or, if I'm really organized, an actual typed and copied handout) that have good information on them but get lost in the shuffle of the rest of the paper in my classroom after I have glanced through them. If I am more deliberate about what I ask for in formative assessments and if I can use some of these tools, I think I will be able to use the information I get much more successfully this year. Here is a clip of one of my favorite educational leaders, Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2), talking about formative and summative assessments.

I created a Google Form about sentence types and enabled Flubaroo (@Flubaroo) to grade it for me. I don't think this gives me better or quicker data than using the Schoology (@Schoology) quizzes, which also grade automatically, so I probably won't use Flubaroo too much. I can see that this would be helpful if I were using Google Classroom because then everything would be in one place, but since we already use Schoology as our learning management system, I like everything to be there. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Flubaroo; I love the idea, but I think it would be an extra thing for me to manage. Feel free to take the quiz if you would like to! 

(Please take one moment to appreciate the fact that I had to manually adjust the size of this form in the embed code and I figured it out and IT WORKED. #progress)



I was already familiar with Socrative (@Socrative) since I used it in graduate school (and I also did my Google Hangout On Air about how to use Socrative. That being said, I still struggled with creating an exit slip that wasn't pre-populated and ended up making a quiz instead and saving it as an exit slip - more problem-solving on the fly! (It seems like a long time ago that I said one of my biggest issues would be seeing roadblocks as opportunities; I still struggle with this, but I HAVE learned to look for answers to my questions and try several things before throwing up my hands in disgust. Again...#progress. :) )

I like Socrative a lot because it is easy, quick, and does not require any additional hardware or software since all the kids already have iPads. I think this is formative assessment at its best because it gives you immediate feedback and it is easy to see exactly where your class is on any given concept. I also like the reports that can be generated after students are finished with the quizzes. I will have to do more work to create exit slips or quizzes that are specific to the content of my class, but the pre-populated ones are also useful, which is a rare find for me. My room number is T6DOMEWS if you would like to take my quiz on Things 1-28. 

I know that several of my colleagues use Kahoot (@GetKahoot), and I have actually administered a few of them while subbing for other teachers in the building. My Adventures kids were also really into them! They are super easy to write and I love the fact that there are literally millions of them that are available for immediate use. Not all of them are useful, though, and there are a lot to sort through, but I'd rather have that problem than have too few resources! 

The few times that I've used Kahoot in the classroom while subbing, the students seemed really into it and liked the immediate feedback when each question ended; they also liked that they could see who was winning after each question because they liked the competition. I could see a lot of potential with Kahoot because as the teacher, I could also see how many of the kids got a question right or wrong as well as which kid got the question right or wrong. I was a little worried that they wouldn't want the other kids to see that they were wrong, but the students didn't seem concerned about that. This would be great for literary factual recall questions or a quick check at the end of a lesson to see who got it on the first try and who didn't. The only thing I'm not sure about it whether or not the results save; Flubaroo and Socrative are good for that, and I don't know if Kahoot does it or not.

Finally, Padlet (@padlet). I love you, Padlet! My first experience with Padlet was not good, though, because it was at a district-wide institute day and had literally hundreds of people adding to the same one, which got really overwhelming really quickly. However, now that I have used it on a smaller scale and created one of my own, I am in love with it. I went to the Scholastic Reading Summit (@Scholastic, @ScholasticTeach, #readingsummit) this summer and got so much inspiration about independent reading AND technology, and one of the best things I learned about was using Padlet with students to share independent reading suggestions and responses. 

In the past, I've had students share their independent reading books verbally and I've kept a list of them, which I then added to Schoology and MAYBE three or four kids would refer to when they needed new independent reading books. However, with Padlet, the kids can add to the list whenever they want and access it easily from their iPads or phones. It's available for Apple or Android and free, which is my favorite price. I think I'm going to have the students put it on their iPads and use it as much as possible for brainstorming - we could do it with independent reading books, selecting quotes for essays (which I do on Schoology discussions now), topics for research projects, and so many other things! Another great thing about this is that it's not limited to just one class, so if I wanted to do a cross-curricular exploration with another teacher, that would be really easy.

Please share your favorite books with me!

Created with Padlet

This was one of the only weeks of this course where I felt that each "thing" I did was useful. Although I liked some more than others and felt that some would be easier to implement in my current classroom than others, none of them were overly flashy or difficult to learn, which means that none of them will stand in the way of the skills or practice the kids need to do. It also means that none of them will be difficult for me to teach the kids (if they're not already familiar with them - they usually are!). I will be implementing the use of Padlet on the first day of school - literally - to collect their summer reading titles and get started on the culture of reading in our classroom!

Some of these tools have applicability outside of the classroom and formative assessment. As I mentioned, I've used Padlet in professional development (as a student, not the presenter). It was a good way to get feedback, but I think it needed to be more organized (the grid view would have helped). I can see using Socrative in a department or faculty meeting to collect responses because you can have open-ended questions, but Flubaroo and Kahoot seem like strictly classroom tools. I would love to hear about other uses!

When I was looking around for other examples of formative assessment in the classroom, I came across this blog that included the rubric below (it's bigger on the post). I really like the idea of using basic rubrics like these because they are not content-specific, and they encourage reflection. Since this is supposed to be for formative assessments, the number is not the grade on the assignment because the assignment is not graded. I need to remind myself that I should not be assigning work because I need the numbers in my gradebook. I need to be okay with much more feedback that is not linked to grades because the grades on the summative assessments will come if the feedback on the formative assessments is timely and focused. One of my biggest concerns is that students are far too focused on the grades they get rather than the learning that takes place. Maybe more formative assessments and feedback will help with that.