Educational Enhancement

Socrative: enquiry-based learning in action

Socrates (470-399 BC) would be pleased to see his philosophy of enquiry-based learning underpinning Socrative; the easy to use, quiz resource for teachers.

By using Socrative, you can test your students’ knowledge to gauge their current level, check ‘in-lesson’ concept learning, and add interaction to classes as students respond via their mobile device.

Invite Socratic methods into your teaching by signing up for Socrative and merge the ancient philosophy of Socrates with the modern technologies and devices that we use today. Read more ›

TodaysMeet is designed to enhance learning by embracing the backchannel; the ‘secondary or covert route for the passage of information’ (Oxford Dictionary) that runs alongside learning.

TodaysMeet for learning and teaching

TodaysMeet allows for shared thoughts, questions, and ideas to run alongside a presentation or discussion, in ‘real time’, just as it is happens.

For those already familiar with Twitter, TodaysMeet is similar in that it enables people to ‘talk’ in a threaded conversation using mobile devices. However, there is an important difference between TodaysMeet and Twitter. TodaysMeet is a virtual private room where only those who are invited can comment, and only those in the virtual room can read. It is a tool that is inspired by a teacher and created for education. Twitter is a public conversation where anyone can read and join in with a thread (unless the settings are altered) and it has not been built with education in mind.

For those interested on the differences between using Twitter and TodaysMeet, you might like to read this teacher’s experience of using both Twitter and TodaysMeet in teaching. Read more ›

Poll Everywhere – build interaction into lectures

You may have recently heard that, ready for the start of the new term, the University of Sussex has licensed Poll Everywhere.

Poll Everywhere is a student response system that allows students to give instant answers or feedback on presented content, via their mobile phones, laptops or tablet devices.

Poll Everywhere can be used to gather ideas, test knowledge or canvas the opinion of a class/audience.

How does it work?

Poll Everywhere is web-based and can be managed both through a web browser or through the Poll Everywhere app. The user is able to create and launch polls either by using a computer or a smart device, including a mobile phone. Read more ›