Taking advantage of mobile devices: Using Socrative in the classroom

Abstract

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow, (Dewey, 1916). In higher education, “we have the opportunity to teach students to ask the right questions, use the real-world tools that they have in their hands to find the best answers, and share that in an authentic way with those around them” (Nelson, 2012). In 2012, EDUCAUSE, a leader in IT advancement for higher education, published its findings of a survey disseminated to 195 participating institutions receiving more than 100,000 student responses. According to this report, ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology Report (Dahlstrom, 2012), students prefer blended and flipped classrooms, they yearn for seamless integration of mobile technology, they believe technology is critical for both academic success and career accomplishments, and they value multiple options for communicating. Additionally, these results report that 86% own a laptop, 62% own a smartphone, 33% own a desktop computer, 15% own a tablet, and 12% own an e-reader. The data are clear; the data cannot be ignored. Students are demanding seamless integration of the varied technologies and mobile devices they own and command. In having valid confirmation from a national perspective, institutions of higher education are faced with the challenge of how to respond. These digital natives are demanding that institutions of learning catch up with the 21 century and engage them using the technologies that are a daily staple of their lives. Long gone are the days of standard lecture and PowerPoint presentations from higher education faculty (Wash & Freeman, 2013). This article describes how one faculty member engages students in the classroom using their own devices, regardless of platform, with the interactive, real-time, web-based student response system tool, Socrative (2013).