Catalytics three to watch

Catalytics, real time response systems. Not marking and feeding back. Teaching and responding in the now.

Understoodit provides live students feedback via a connected device to tell their teachers when they are confused and when they understand a lesson. Teachers then see this data in real time and can adjust their teaching accordingly. The app does not actually tell the teacher who in the class isn’t quite able to follow along, so students don’t have to worry about voicing their concerns.

SlideKlowd combines interactive presentations and student tracking via any mobile device, testing both comprehension and emotion as you teach. SlideKlowd helps you monitor the engagement via their level of involvement in responding to surveys and whether or not they are using the note-taking tool for example (and there are more ways).

Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. I have used this in my classroom here.

So what? Surely I can do this with wipeboards and colour cards and ….. yes you can.

‘Learning catalytics’ is another label for AfL. As a teacher, you use AfL right? To not only know how many students got the question right (the first and second time) but where (and who) they are. You use this information to inform your teaching. Where digital systems might have the edge is the quality of the feedback information they provide, instantly pairing those students up who get it constsantly right, with the ones who get it consistently wrong, or get it similarly wrong, by sending both a message to “turn to the neighbor on your left or right / go and work with Jane, Joe, or both”. Digital systems can even split up “cliques” of friends who sit together (and often tend to have similar opinions), assigning seats for maximum learning and so it goes on….

Do not get sweep away, I am just putting it out there. I still you instant, low tech response systems more often in my classroom than high tech ones. Random name selectors, auto group selectors (thank you Triptico) wipe boards, RAG cards, gladitor thumbs, conitnuum lines and ‘move to the corner of the room’ response questions.

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