As we continue to look for ways to bridge the gap between assessing student learning and effective use of time and technology, several options that currently exist could be used in new ways to streamline your quick formative assessment of individual student progress in a given lesson. The tools are social media networks and they are likely all networks that students already use on a daily basis (and quite possibly in your classroom).
Below are 3 free tools that could be used to gather some information from students about their progress or understanding of a lesson or activity.
Vine
What: I have talked about vine before on this site and the ways in which it can be used effectively in the classroom due to the limited time in which the user is able to record, therefore forcing the students to really think about the content of their recording and ensure what is recorded is really of utmost importance. Vine is a social network that allows individuals to take short ‘burst' videos (a few seconds in length) and then the service stitches them together automatically to form one relatively short video to share. This is great for the classroom as it encourages deeper thought as to what is important to include and what can be purged. It is also easy to view these as a teacher through the student's feed or your feed if the student shares it directly with you.
How: Students can create free Vine accounts (download the app as well, iOS and Android) – teachers should have an account as well. Encourage students to take video blasts throughout the class period to capture the most important concepts or activities. At the end of the period, students can share their completed Vine video with you and you can gauge understanding, attentiveness, and overall grasp of their determination of the important parts of the lesson.
What: Twitter, as most already know, is a social network that allows users to post short messages (140 characters) to their feed. It also allows use of hashtags or mentions of other Twitter users that then alerts those users they have been mentioned and displays the tweet. Twitter allows posting images, text, and links to webpages/videos/etc.
How: Twitter is a great exit slip tool as students really need to condense their learning or understanding to a relatively short phrase. This activity encourages students to succinctly consider the highlights of the lesson and reflect on what information (or more importantly, ideas) should be retained and reiterated to the class.
Students and the Teacher would need Twitter accounts (check your district's social media policy first) and then have access to a device to post their tweet at the end (or during, if you would like) of the class period. Tweets can be accompanied with a photo as well. Students should tweet to a specific hashtag (develop a unique one for your class) or directly to the teacher account. The end product is a list of Tweets that the teacher can review to see specific takeaways from that lesson.
You can also use this as a question/answer piece too – instead of posting reflections, have students post questions they still have for you to then address online or in class the next day.
What: Instagram is a photo/video sharing social media platform that has very similar tenets to Twitter, but is somewhat of the latest ‘hot' media tool among teens. You can take pictures in the app or post ones from your camera roll, apply filters, and make comments.
How: Implementation of Instagram is very similar to that of Twitter. All participants will need an Instagram account (through the Instagram app). Students can take pictures of their learning throughout the course of the lesson and choose the one that best represents the achievement of their instructional goal for the day to post to Instagram. They can also record short videos to post to their feed instead. Consider having groups of students focus on different goals or learning objectives to get a variety of components of your lesson represented.
Students should use either a classroom specific hashtag or tag the teacher directly to develop a feed that other students and the teacher can easily view.
