Students beg for this formative assessment tool
Community Review for InfuseLearning
My Take
Infuse Learning does not have an app, but they have a mobile website that works on all devices that can connect to the Internet. The website has layers of options. On top of the multiple choice questions and short answers that other student response systems offer, they also have draw response, true/false*, sort & order*, numeric, and Likert scale*. The starred* options offer sub choices. For example, true/falso questions can also include IDK. That way responses are not skewed for lucky guesses. The Likert scale offers the option for a confidence poll, which I like to use after new material is presented.
The coolest option by far is drawing, which is perfect for on the fly formative assessment. It is easiest with a touch screen device, but can be done with less artist flare using a netbook touchpad. I scored the engagement high because of the draw feature. They literally begged to use and loved looking at each others as a quickly scrolled through the images.
When we used Infuse Learning last year, there was some frustration with the delays on the website. At one point everyone was kicked off and had to log back in to the room. The positives far outweighed the negatives.
How I Use It
The activity where I first tried incorporating the drawing on Infuse Learning was the Spanish clothing unit. My students were using a variety of devices – including just the mouse pad on a netbook. There was a variety of artistic skills displayed, but they all achieved the learning goal of demonstrating understanding of vocabulary for clothing and a review of colors and adjectives. I’ve used traditional whiteboards, but did not have enough for each student and we were limited to a couple colors. Using Infuse Learning, I see the response from every single student in a wide variety of colors. They were so proud of their work. The laughter over some of the pictures made the learning environment positive and amusing.
I agree that the quality of the tool is determined by the questions and prompts that are developed by the teacher. There are many times that a quick formative assessment is needed to ensure that students are on track with their learning before the lesson progresses. Using the range of question types allows teachers to incorporate higher level thinking, problem solving, and creativity.