Kahoot vs Socrative Space Race

Since we are just getting used to using the tablets in class, I thought I would start with some easy-to-use, fun programs while we worked out the bugs of using tablets in class. Two of my favorite apps I have used before in Australia are Kahoot and Socrative. Both are available for almost any platform you might be using, or the kids might have. In Australia we had laptops, so using tablets is a new experience for me with these apps. Both are games that allow you to get some good formative feedback from the students. Socrative also does lots of other things, but I have started with the space race game and so will compare it with Kahoot.

Both apps allow you to download a spreadsheet with all the data after the game. You can see how every student did on each question and how the class did on each question. This provides some very useful formative feedback that can be used to direct your future teaching. One limitation they both have for maths, is they have limited ability to write maths the way you are used to. Many symbols are not available and some things like fractions (have to write like 2/3) will not look like the students are used to seeing in their books and worksheets. There is a workaround, and that is both apps allow you to upload a picture for each question. You can write your question and answers in a different program, powerpoint works well, and save it as a picture. It also works if you want to have diagrams, shapes or graphs as part of the question or answers. This takes more time to set up and is not always easy to see when playing the game, especially in Kahoot. The kids, I teach all ages up to A level, (age 18) love to play both games. The overall favourite is Kahoot so I will start with Kahoot!

Pros: Fast paced and after each question the students get to see the point standing and where they stand. This feeds their competitive spirit and they get very excited with every move up or down the the leader board. After each question the whole class gets to see how many students answered each choice. This is fantastic for the teacher as you can see how many got the question correct and how many selected each wrong choice. The question and answers are also displayed so you can immediately discuss each wrong selection and review any misunderstandings students may  have based on their incorrect choice.I have never seen an activity where all the students are so excited and committed to answering questions, no matter the topic.

Cons: Students do not get the question or answers on their device. The question and  answer choices are only displayed on the projected image at the front of the class. Each device only has four colours with a shape that matches up with the answers on the projected image at the front. This means it can be hard for students in the back to clearly see the question or answer choices. For each question you choose the time allowed to answer. The max time you can set is 2 minutes so it won't work for questions that the students might need more time to work out.

Socrative:

Pros: Each student will see the question and answer choices on their individual device. This means it is easier for all students to see the question and works better for questions that have diagrams, shapes or graphs.  You do not set a time for each question so the students can spend as much time as needed on each question and they work through the questions at their own pace. A set of rockets is displayed on the board and as each team answers questions their rocket moves across the screen. You can either let the students select teams or have the app randomly assign students to teams. You decide how many teams you want to have.

Cons: You don't get the immediate feedback that you get with Kahoot. It is not until you look at the spreadsheet with the results once the game is finished, that you can see which questions or topics the students misunderstood. Depending how many are on each team and how well they do on the questions, their rocket may reach the finish before they have answered all the questions. This means they tend to lose the impetus of the competition as I tell them they still need to finish answering all the questions.

Summary: The kids enjoy playing both games but enjoy and get more excited by Kahoot. I think they are complementary apps as I have discussed since in maths there are certain topics that would work better with Socrative Space Race. Trying to read graphs or angles in shapes would work better if the students could see the picture in front of them. Longer problem solving questions would work better as the students could have more time to work through the problems in the Space Race also. It is a real pleasure to see the students standing, thinking, debating, and calculating furiously to solve each question in the Kahoots. The shouts of joy as they are one of the few to get a hard one correct and move up the leader board, or the groans as they mess up and slide down the standings means they are never satisfied with one Kahoot and always want to play "one more!"