1. Socrates for the 21st Century
Socrative: As Easy as
Raising Your Hand
Sarah Barnett
July 14, 2013
ITEC 7445; Booker
Kennesaw State University

2. Socrates: The Namesake
• Socrates was an ancient Greek
philosopher and founder of Western
philosophy
• Socratic Seminars, appropriately named
for Socrates, guide students toward
deeper understanding through the use
of open-ended questions and inquiry
based problems.
• Students use textual evidence to support
answers which should guide them to further
questions in an effort to promote critical
thinking.
• Learn more about Socratic Seminars.

3. Socratic Seminars with Technology
• Socrative, an emerging technology tool, essentially
allows teachers to use technology to expand the
learning potential of Socratic Seminars and other
question-based activities.
• Hand-raising to answer questions is replaced by
“texting.”

4. What is Socrative?
• Socrative (www.socrative.com) is a Web-based tool that
allows teachers to pose questions and capture student
answers.
• Socrative is much like conventional student response
systems (or “clickers”) that can enhance interactive
whiteboard presentations, but Socrative eliminates the
need for expensive technology tools and instead runs on
any electronic device with Internet access:
• Laptops
• SmartPhones
• Ipods touches
• Tablets
• Unlike traditional “clickers,” Socrative allows students to
enter text answers, not simply choose a multiple choice
answer.
The devices our students already
bring to school with a BYOT policy!

5. What does Socrative look like in
action?
Watch the video to learn more about how Socrative works from both a
teacher and student perspective.

6. How does Socrative support Henry
County Schools’ technology vision?
• The technology vision states, “Henry
County Schools supports teachers,
students, staff, and administrators in
using technology tools to enable and
accelerate the documented benefits
of research-based instructional
strategies.”
• Socrative can help fulfill Henry
County’s commitment to “ensuring
success for each student” and
creating graduates who are
prepared to enter college or the
workforce.

7. What research-based strategies
does Socrative support?
• Socrative promotes formative assessment
from immediate student-teacher feedback
and allows the teacher to differentiate
delivery of instruction when students either
do not understand or do understand.
• Socrative promotes social interaction and
collaboration among students and
teachers. Socrative allows all students’
voices to be heard, even those who may be
unwilling to speak audibly.
• Teachers can share quizzes on Socrative
with other teachers, promoting common
assessment.

8. Who can use Socrative?
• Socrative can be used by
students of all ages, all grade
levels, and all ability levels.
• No email address is required
and students do not create
individual accounts, so there
are no privacy concerns or
age limitations.
• More students may have
access to personal electronic
devices in upper grades, so
elementary and middle schools
may need to focus more efforts
on obtaining Internet-enabled
devices for students to use.

9. What do I need to implement
Socrative?
• At least two Internet-enabled devices are needed
to implement Socrative, a teacher device and a
student device.
• Henry County’s new wireless network allows
students with Internet-enabled mobile devices to
use Socrative at school, even if they do not
purchase individual data plans from their providers.
• Ideally, the technology should be implemented in a
1:1 ratio, although students could potentially work in
small groups for some activities. Teachers may
have small class sets of electronic devices or
laptops for those students without personal
electronic devices.

10. Teacher Device: Teachers set up
a virtual classroom and then
create questions/quizzes for
students to complete.
Student Device: Students join the
virtual classroom and then await
questions from the teacher.
Students select correct answers.

11. What types of technical support are
available?
• Currently, Socrative is in the beta testing phase so
the creators encourage feedback from teacher
users to improve the product.
• Teachers may submit a contact form on the
Socrative website.
• Socrative Garden is a blog devoted to providing
teachers with tips for using Socrative in the
classroom and troubleshooting.
• The Socrative creators welcome feedback via
many social media tools, including Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.

12. To the right is an example of
a Socrative Garden blog
entry. The green SOC #s
relate to pre-made
Socrative quiz activities
teachers can implement in
their own classrooms to
collect formative and
summative student data.
This specific blog post offers
teachers access to three
“thinking” quizzes designed
to help students make
connections between what
they already know and
what they have just
learned. Student responses
would be captured by
Socrative and then
delivered to teachers in a
downloadable Excel report.
This would make a great
“ticket-out-the-door.”

13. What are the limitations of
Socrative?
• Implementation may be limited by students who do
not have personal electronic Internet-enabled
devices (i.e. the digital divide)
• Provisions would need to be made for these students
to use school devices to ensure equity in access.

14. What is the cost of Socrative?
Cost for
Program
Free
Cost for
Devices
Students would
bring personal
devices (BYOT).
Minimal costs to
have school
devices for check-
out.
Cost for
Training
Minimal training
needed.
Teachers can use
free technical
support on
Socrative website.

15. What is the cost of Socrative?
• Currently, Socrative is in beta
testing and all features are
free.
• Socrative designers are
committed to maintaining a
free version of Socrative, but
some current or new features
may eventually require a
reasonable subscription fee.
Cost for
Program
Free

16. What is the cost of Socrative?
• With a BYOT policy, it is difficult to
estimate how many Internet-
enabled devices may need to be
purchased, since many students
will use personal devices for this
program.
• Funds should be located to obtain
devices for those students who do
not have personal devices.
• Existing laptop machines at
schools may be sufficient.
• Note: Although Socrative does not
require an interactive whiteboard,
it is compatible with all interactive
whiteboards.
Cost for
Devices
Students would
bring personal
devices (BYOT).
Minimal costs to
have school
devices for check-
out.

17. What is the cost of Socrative?
• Cost for training would be rather
minimal.
• Socrative offers a training blog
with an extensive
FAQ/Troubleshooting section,
training videos, and a user’s
manual.
• Additionally, the site is simple and
intuitive to use.
Cost for
Training
Minimal training
needed.
Teachers can use
free technical
support on
Socrative website.

18. How can we fund this project?
• Potential Sources for funding include:
• Collecting used, donated smartphones from parents,
community members, churches, etc. Phones do not have to
be in service, only capable of Internet-access when charged.
• Requesting monies from Partner’s in Education, especially
those with technology services.
• Soliciting donations for Internet-enabled devices from
DonorsChoose, a non-profit site dedicated to helping teachers
find funding from willing donors
• Writing grants. Henry County has two Co-Coordinators for
Grants and School Improvement who can provide assistance.
Some potential grants are linked below:
• Snapping Shoals Bright Ideas Grant
• GA Power
• Verizon Foundation
• AT&T Education Grants

19. Socrative
in the
Classroom
Content
Standards
Technology
Standards
Research-Based
Instructional Strategies
Formative
Assessment
Summative
Assessment
Creative Uses
Differentiation
Communication

20. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Socrative supports
learning in all content
areas and can be used
to measure student’s
knowledge (i.e.
identification of historical
figures) and skills (i.e.
completion of math
problem). A variety of
question types provide
teachers with student
data.

21. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Socrative addresses the following National
Educational Technology Standards for Students
(ISTE, 2013):
• Standard 2 Communication and Collaboration: Students use
digital media and environments to communicate and work
collaboratively, including at a distance, to support
individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
• Socrative promotes active communication between students
and teachers and encourages active participation from all
students to encourage student learning.
• Standard 5 Digital Citizenship: Students understand human,
cultural, and societal issues related to technology and
practice legal and ethical behavior.

22. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Formative Assessment:
• The teacher in any content areas can use
multiple choice questions embedded in a
PowerPoint presentation or written on the board
to measure understanding during a lecture;
students use Socrative to provide answers. The
teacher easily knows whether to review the
material or move on.
• The teacher can pose students with an open-
ended discussion question; students first input
answers into Socrative. The teacher can view
these answers from all students and select several
students to explain their answers to the class.

23. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Formative Assessment
• Teachers can require students to complete an “exit
ticket” before the end of class; the teacher might ask,
“What concept from today’s lesson is now very clear
to you?” or “What do you still not understand about
our lesson today?” or “How does this connect with
what you are learning in Social Studies?”
• Summative Assessment
• Quizzes and tests can be completed using
Socrative; the teacher may input the questions
into the Socrative web platform or allow students
to just input answers from their paper test.

24. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Creative Uses
• During Socratic Seminars, those students in the
outer circle could submit questions via Socrative
that they would like to raise after the inner circle
finishes discussion.
• During close reading of text, students may submit
questions or thoughts about the reading, much
like traditional annotation, so that the teacher
can monitor the student’s ability to make
inferences, draw conclusions, understand
unfamiliar vocabulary. Worksheets and guided
reading activities could be replaced with
Socrative.

25. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Creative Uses:
• Students can play a Space Race game (built into
Socrative) against other students in the class or in
teams to practice specific skills or content.
• Using anonymous short answer questions, students
could share goals, struggles, thoughts to ponder;
the teacher might share by taking a screen shot
of the Excel report on her computer screen or
projecting the screen to the front of the room.

26. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Socrative allows a teacher to differentiate lesson
content, structure, or pace based on immediate
student-teacher feedback.
• Exit tickets let a teacher plan the day’s instruction or
create differentiated groups based on learner
needs.
• Small groups of students can submit to the teacher
open-ended responses to differentiated tasks and
all data is compiled in a single report.

27. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Socrative promotes authentic communication and
collaboration:
• Between students and teachers in the classroom, allowing
teachers to tailor instruction to student needs.
• Between students and other students, allowing students to
share open-ended text-based answers with peers, before
speaking them aloud.
• Between teachers and parents. Teachers could create a
Socrative classroom and invite parents to join, posing a
question such as “Did your child show you his or her report
card tonight?”

28. How can Socrative be used in the
classroom?
• Socrative promotes:
• Student engagement
• Active, student-
directed learning
• Higher-order thinking
skills
• Differentiation
• Communication and
collaboration

29. How do teachers get data from
Socrative?
• Socrative offers data in
two ways:
• For individual questions
(multiple choice, true-false,
short answer), teachers
can see responses in real-
time, including counts of
students who chose
specific answers.
• These questions are
anonymous.

30. How do teachers get data from
Socrative?
• For questions entered as “quizzes,” Socrative quickly creates
an Excel spreadsheet summary once the teacher has ended
the activity. The spread sheet is organized by student name
and shows each student’s answer to each question posed,
along with a grade. The report can be downloaded, opened
in Excel, or exported to Edmodo.

31. What does the research say about
Socrative?
• Interactivity, promotion of higher-order thinking skills,
immediate feedback, and anonymity in contributing
answers can foster student engagement and learning
(deJong et. al, 2009).
• Immediate feedback is critical in ensuring that teachers do not
continue with a lesson that students are not understanding.
Anonymity means students are willing to “speak-up” if they are
confused. Socrative addresses each of these issues.
• Clicker-like tools promote active learning during an
entire class period; their game-like format can be
engaging to students (Martyn, 2007).
• Students must be engaged in order to respond. They are
actively listening so that they can respond quickly.

32. What does the research say about
Socrative?
• Computer response systems promote discussion,
collaboration, and participation, as well as provide
teachers with a way to immediately adapt the
learning experience to student needs (Bruff, 2013).
• Students are more likely to participate if they can use
electronic devices. Socrative also ensures that the teacher
“hears” from every student to assess understanding.
• Socrative was rated as one of the Best Websites for
Teaching and Learning in 2013 by the American
Association of School Librarians (AASL, 2013).

33. How should we implement
Socrative in our school?
• Teachers will need to be trained in BYOT policies
and best practices. This will already occur during
pre-planning in the 2013-2014 school year as several
schools begin the roll-out plan for wireless networks.
• A teacher-made tutorial should be sufficient for
teachers to learn Socrative.
• Teacher-to-teacher support through discussion
groups and technology-centered wikis will be
critical in implementing and sharing BYOT best
practices in the coming years.

34. Reflection
• Since my school will be implementing BYOT (Bring Your
Own Technology) next year and installing a new wireless
network, Socrative seemed a way to take advantage of
the fact that students will already be bringing personal
electronic devices to school. While some teachers in my
school do have access to interactive whiteboards and
supplemental classroom response systems, most do not;
Socrative allows teachers to take advantage of the type
of student engagement made possible by using
“clickers.” Because many students will have their own
personal electronic devices, the out of pocket cost for
implementation will be minimal, requiring the school only
to purchase devices for those students who do not have
any. Current school technology resources may be
sufficient to fulfill this need.

35. Reflection
• Although Socrative does have an option for quizzes and
other forms of summative assessment, I would caution
teachers from using it for tests or exams in the classroom,
since Socrative cannot prevent students from accessing
other Internet sites to find answers. The current learning
management system implemented in Henry County
Schools (POINT) is more sophisticated in terms of
analyzing student data from full-length quizzes and tests.
However, for formative assessment in day-to-day
instruction, Socrative gives teachers a quick “pulse
check” of students’ understanding and ensures that
students remain attentive, alert, and engaged.
Moreover, because it takes advantage of the devices
students are already bringing to school, its
implementation is cost-effective.

36. Reflection
• As an English teacher, I look forward to using
Socrative for multiple choice practice on AP
Literature practice exams, soliciting feedback from
outer circle students during Socratic seminars, and
collecting “exit tickets” to check students
understanding from the day. I may also use
Socrative for two-question reading quizzes, a
frequent practice I implement to ensure students
read the previous night’s assigned reading.
Socrative makes such assessment quick to grade
and eliminates the need for paper and pencil.

37. Reflection
• Evaluating Socrative allowed me to consider how
teachers besides myself may use this technology
tool in the classroom. One thing I really liked about
Socrative was that it was simple to understand.
Because it does not complete too many different
tasks, it is relatively simply for technology novices to
learn. As we implement more technology into K-12
instruction, it is important to have some tools with a
low learning curve so that those teachers nervous
to use technology are not immediately turned off
by tools that are difficult to use.

38. References
American Association of School Librarians (2013). Best
websites for teaching & learning 2013. Retrieved from
http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/best-
websites/2013#manage
Bruff, D. (2013). Classroom response systems (“clickers”).
Center for teaching: Vanderbilt University. Retrieved from
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-
guides/technology/clickers/#why
de Jong, T., Lane, J., Sharp, S. & Kershaw, P. (2009)
Optimising Personal Audience Response Systems
technology to enhance student learning in teacher
education lectures, in The Student Experience,
Proceedings of the 32nd HERDSA Annual Conference,
Darwin, 6-9 July 2009: pp 111-120. Retrieved from
http://www.herdsa.org.au/wp-
content/uploads/conference/2009/papers/HERDSA2009_
DeJong_T.pdf

39. References
JobsFirstNYC(2011, Sept. 23). Bridging the digital
divide in NYC [image]. Retrieved from
http://blog.jobsfirstnyc.org/2011/09/bridging-digital-
divide-in-new-york.html
Martyn, M. (2007). Clickers in the classroom: An active
learning approach. Educause review online.
Retrieved
fromhttp://www.educause.edu/ero/article/clickers-
classroom-active-learning-approach