How Do The Most Popular EdTech Polling Tools Compare?
Analyzing the Pros and Cons of Kahoot, Socrative, Quizlet Live, and Nearpod
Formative assessment tools such as “exit slips” have become the norm in the classroom as a way to check in with students to inform the pacing of future lessons. Fortunately, many online tools exist to ease the process gathering formative assessments during a lesson to make it easier to check in with students. Each tool on the market has features that make them unique and impact the experience and pacing of the lesson in different ways. The most common tools at the moment are Kahoot, Socrative, Quizlet Live, and Nearpod. Each of these tools have been evaluated based on how they can be used specifically for the purpose of formative assessment in the classroom during lessons. For teachers, lesson planning is a delicate balance between ensuring that lessons are not too challenging for students, while still encouraging growth and learning, and each tool has a different approach to finding the right balance.
Kahoot
Pros: Students can access the quizzes quickly and easily.
Cons: Students can only view the questions on one screen in front of the classroom. This might make it difficult for some students to follow along while the lesson is taking place.
What makes Kahoot unique?
Teachers can create their own quiz or select from the many free options of quizzes that other teachers have created. In addition to multiple choice, Kahoot offers “Jumble Quizzes” which allows students to order answers into a correct sequence. This is great for history or science lessons if you want to test memory for answers that require a correct order or sequence. Kahoot is the only tool of the four that offers points or rankings to students for correctly answering questions. Teachers can easily customize the experience by selecting whether or not they want the rankings to be visible to students.
It is also the only tool that offers a “2 step join” which offers an extra step before joining for added security. When 2-step join is enabled, players need to enter the tile pattern on their devices in addition to a PIN to be able to join the game. This prevents users who are not physically in the classroom from joining in.
While using Kahoot, it is important to consider the fact that transitions between questions are very quick. This leaves very little time in between questions for teachers to discuss answers with students. Teachers also need to consider how much technology they have available in the classroom since questions for students are only displayed in the teacher’s view. This means that a projector or a smart screen is needed to display the questions while each student needs a device for full classroom participation.
Usability as a formative assessment tool:
Teachers can download the results of their students’ quizzes as reports at the end of the lessons to their Google Drive or as an Excel spreadsheet. However, there is no way for teachers to see individual students’ answers during the duration of the lesson. While Kahoot is an excellent tool for polling students, it may be difficult to integrate into lessons as a formative assessment tool.
Socrative
Pros: While creating the quizzes, teachers can add their own feedback to appear in addition to the correct answer. Teachers can also include open ended questions in their quizzes.
Cons: During the lesson, teachers can’t view which students have completed the questions or what they have written during the lesson.
What makes Socrative unique?
When teachers sign up, they are assigned a classroom and a PIN code that students can use to login to their classroom. Once the teacher has signed into their account, they can choose which quiz to launch in the classroom for their students to see. While creating quizzes, teachers can also include their own customized feedback which appears on their students’ screens in addition to the right answer. Teachers also have the option of adding open ended questions which students can respond to by typing out their answers.
While Socrative does not have a point system like Kahoot, it does offer a quiz option that is in the form of a game to increase student engagement. Quizzes that teachers create can be launched as a team game called Space Race where students compete by answering a series of multiple choice questions. Each correct answer moves the rocket one step further. Teachers can customize the experience by selecting up to 20 teams. Students can be auto assigned to a team or select a team for themselves once they login. Regardless of the number of students in a team, all it takes is one right answer for the rocket to move. This makes it a good option if there are limited devices in the classroom since students can share a device to answer questions together in small groups.
Usability as a formative assessment tool:
Like Kahoot, reports can be can be downloaded on Google Drive, as a .pdf and as an Excel document. After the quiz, teachers have the option to view the results of the whole class, individual students and specific questions. During the quiz teachers can see how many students have answered the question, however they can’t view their answers until the end of the quiz. Students can sign onto the quiz both with and without their logins which means that if teachers want to collect their reports, students have to be logged in otherwise they will lose their data if they get disconnected.
Quizlet Live
Pros: Questions are designed in a way that encourages discussion and teamwork.
Cons: Teachers can’t write open ended questions into the quiz.
What makes Quizlet unique?
Quizlet Live poses the questions differently to most multiple choice questions. Students participate in teams where all participants have a different set of potential answers to the question. To answer the question correctly, students are required to communicate and collaborate with each other to figure out which one of them has the correct answer. Since students are not required to look at a projector in the front of the classroom, teachers have more flexibility with the classroom set up and spacing. For instance you can have students work in small groups both inside and outside the classroom.
Usability as a formative assessment tool:
Since there is only one right answer amongst all the students, the quiz facilitates teamwork and and promotes discussion about the terms. Teachers can listen to these discussions to understand the thought process of their students.
While Quizlet Live is a great tool for definitions and vocabulary building, there are some limitations that teachers have while creating the quizzes. Teachers must have a minimum of 12 questions before they can initiate the quiz and only have the option of creating multiple choice or true/false questions.
Nearpod
Pros: Teachers can view student activity during the lesson and select what students can and can’t see. Teachers can choose from lessons and edit slides to customize them for their class.
Cons: Teachers can’t track student assessments over time.
What makes Nearpod unique?
Nearpod is the only tool that allows for students to interact with the questions by drawing directly on the page.Teachers can then view which students have completed the activity and which students are still working. Teachers can also view exactly what each student has written and can then showcase student work by selecting their screen to share with the rest of the class.
Usability as a formative assessment tool:
After the questions are answered, teachers can instantly view the results of a quiz. They are given the name of each student and how they answered. This information can also be viewed in the form of a graph which can also be shared with students. The fact that teachers can instantly view how students have answered questions makes it an excellent formative assessment tool since teachers can change the pacing of the lesson based on the needs of the students.
How can the experience be improved?
Even if students are signed into student accounts, all four tools require students to login with a PIN and enter their name every time they use it. This means that the reports are saved by quiz name rather than student. As a result, teachers can’t easily track student assessment over time or have one place to store their results. The experience could be improved if teachers could search for students by name and easily access all the reports pertaining to each of the students in their classroom.
