Formative Assessment: Socrative 2.0

Get Socrative!

Rating: 5/5

         Socrative 2.0 is a free formative assessment tool that can be accessed through laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Students can access the tool through the web or download the app in the App Store, Google Play, and the Chrome Web Store. Educators create their account and are assigned their unique room code; students use that code to log in and take formative assessments.

         Teachers have the option of creating a multiple choice true/false, or short answer question(s). Assessments have their unique SOC number so that teachers can share a specific assessment and collaborate! Educators have the options of including an explanation for the correct answer, adding an image to the question. Socrative 2.0 offers descriptive statistics of each assessments results. Space Race is a fun way to put students into teams to answer the questions and compete against one another. Exit Tickets prompt students to rate their grasp of the material, write what they learned in their own words, and educators can ask an additional question to the student.

         The limitation of this tool is that all students might not have a laptop, smartphone, or tablet with an Internet connection. A potential problem might be that students might venture off into their social networks instead of completing the formative assessment. Socrative 2.0 can be used in an English classroom to check what percentage of the class did the prior night’s reading.

Close Reading: Subtext

Get Subtext

Rating: 5/5 

          Subtext is an Apple app that facilitates close readings of PDFs, e-books, and articles for students. Readers can double tap a word or passage and highlight it; highlights may be personalized through tags and different colors. Readers are provided with definitions of words and can redirect themselves to Google for further research. On the other hand, teachers can highlight a passage or word and create an open-ended question, multiple choice, or poll for students to complete as they read. Teachers can integrate videos, images, and web links into the specific parts of the text. Subtext offers the option to create discussion groups. Teachers can also get all the students on the same page of a text by inviting members or groups to the desired page. Teachers can also upgrade to the premium version of the app to obtain a detailed progress of students and Common Core assignments.

          Subtext can be used in an English classroom to facilitate and promote close reading. I would use Subtext in the classroom to model the reading process of an independent reader. Students will see that the reading is an interactive and not passive process. One limitation of Subtext is that it only available on Apple products. Students might not have access to Apple products in school or at home. The premium packs costs $2.99, comes with 10 seats, and expires at the end of each school year.  Teachers would have to buy multiple packs if they have more than 10 students and renew the premium pack yearly.

Film in Education

There were various types of technology that influenced education from 1900-1990, but I personally feel that film was the one technology that impacted English classes the most during this historical time period. Vanessa Domine in "A Social History of Media, Technology and Schooling" and Rethinking Technology in Schools points out that teachers feared that they were going to be replaced by instructional films. Also, film was used by advertisers as a form of propaganda to shape students' thinking.

Pew Survey Results: Teachers' Technology Use

I did not find the survey results of “How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms” surprising because of the selected participants that compose the sample population.  The majority of the teachers were affiliated with College Board and/ or the National Writing Project; as a result, they are exposed to distinct resources and training. I anticipated that the majority of the teachers would have said that technology has had a major impact in their profession. I found it super interesting that a large amount of teachers (84%) concur with the statement, “‘Today’s digital technologies are leading to greater disparities between affluent and disadvantaged schools and school districts’” (Purcell, Heaps, Buchanan,  & Friedrich, 2013) because the lack of access to digital technology within and outside of school might affect the existing achievement gap.

            On another note, my high school experiences are accurate with the generational differences in how teachers integrate technology in the classroom. Older high school teachers rarely, if ever, integrated the use of technology in the classroom. I only recall my mathematics teachers using the overhead. On the other hand, I do in-class support in a mathematics classroom that incorporates interactive lessons through the SMART Board. Also, last semester a professor used a student response system called Socrative to assess students on assigned readings. As a future teacher I feel comfortable with digital technology and strive to integrate it into the classroom when appropriate. I am also open to learning about new digital tools that can help enhance learning in the classroom.

           

Refrences

Purcell, K., Heaps, A., Buchanan, J., Friedrich, L. (2013, February 27). How Teachers

Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms. Retrieved February 10,

2015.

Reflection on Influential Technologies

`           Nowadays, it is more accessible to own technology and have it influence your life than ever before. For example, I remember soccer fans on public transportation watching World Cup soccer games through their smart phones on the WatchESPN app. Technology helps connect people to things that they have a particular interest in. Thus, my iPhone, computer, and television have impacted the way I obtain and learn new information.

          First, My iPhone 4S and I have been together for the past two years and it is the first and only smartphone in my life at the moment. Before owning my iPhone 4S, I had a basic flip phone that I used mainly for phone calls. The iPhone 4S though gives me the option to video chat with people through Facetime. For example, I once had a meeting with someone through Facetime because of conflicting schedules while I was on the bus! It saves you from all the hassle of traveling somewhere to meet.

My smartphone allows me stay in touch with my peeps through social networks. Interestingly, Snapchat in its most recent upgrade has included a discover section that streams information from CNN, Vice, Yahoo! News, National Geographic, and more. I can know learn something new from the videos that these different forms of media stream on their Snapchat accounts. The best part is that my smartphone lets me access a ton of information through my browser. I can search up any word, concept, or theory that I am unfamiliar with. Also, Google Maps on my iPhone 4S has had a major impact in my life because it facilitates my travels. I use public transportation to get around and my iPhone 4S through Google Maps tells me which bus I need to take and how long it will take me to reach my destination. I don’t fear getting lost anywhere because I know that my smartphone will assist me in finding my way home. Similarly, to the girl in the video, my iPhone 4S has become my “third hand” (0:40) because it helps me stay in contact with people, access to information, and ease my travels through public transportation

Second, I have only had a laptop for five months, but it makes a huge difference. The boy in the beginning of the video is completely correct when he says that technology has made it convenient to write. I would sometimes write my papers on my iPhone 4S, but it was uncomfortable because of the small keyboard. My laptop makes it easier for me to comfortably write my papers anywhere! When I am on the bus I can just pop open my laptop and type away. I do not even need a notebook anymore because I can now just create a notebook layout document on my laptop and take notes while I am in class. My notes are cleaner, more organized, and stored in one place. I don’t have to be worry about taking the right notebook to class or remembering to bring an article to class because everything is neatly stored on the laptop. Most importantly, I no longer have to worry about going to the computer lab to borrow a laptop for 6 hours at Montclair State University. My laptop has definitely been helpful, but I would not say that, “it’s a bare necessity” (0:30). I can go back to writing my notes down on a notebook or typing my papers up on my desktop.

Third, television is another medium that helps me obtain new information. One of my favorite channels is PBS because they have some intriguing documentaries. I also love the History and Discovery Channel. These television channels expose to a wide array of information that I would have probably never been aware of. It usually leads me to doing further research on topics that I find interesting. While I watch television I also turn on the closed captions option to learn new vocabulary and be able to correctly right it down. I usually Google search the word right there and then on my phone to learn new vocabulary.

Thus, technology has made it easier for me to access a limitless amount of information through my phone, laptop, and television. The information that I access ultimately shapes my perspective.