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Review by Christie Thomas, Common Sense Education | Updated April 2014

Geddit

Response tool's clever content delivery supports students' confidence

Common Sense says
4
Rating Details
Teachers say (4 Reviews)
$avg_user_learning_rating
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Grades
4-12 This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.
Great for:
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Platforms:  Website

Take a look inside

1 video | 6 images
A view from the Geddit homepage.
Teachers can create lessons, and then add topics and questions.
Class responses can be shared with the class – even in real time – but individuals' responses are just below.
View lesson results of overall class confidence, as well as responses to questions.
During the lesson, students can rate their confidence at any time and answer questions.
Students can review lesson content, along with their answers and self-reported confidence rating.

Pros: Free and easy-to-use, it helps provide data for both teachers and students, encouraging metacognition.

Cons: A lack of teachers' options could make it challenging to organize lessons and questions; real-time class results can’t easily be shown anonymously.

Bottom Line: More than others, this student response tool has potential to boost kids' higher order thinking and learning skills.

Lesson & Activity Ideas

Geddit's unique color-coded signal bars are great for gauging students' confidence so that you can make sound instructional decisions. For instance, geometry students can check in on their homework, and then get placed into mixed groups for peer review. History students can check in after you've assigned a multi-part project; you can group those who need clarification together for a quick re-teaching lesson. Actually correlating confidence to correct answers will take a little practice. The site doesn't flag mismatches (high confidence and wrong answer, for example), but -- with some practice -- you'll be able to spot the visual reports that signal some of these areas for concern.

Also, the polling feature is great for identifying preconceptions. For example, science students can select what they think plants use as food; they can be grouped to differentiate the lesson accordingly. Since lesson data is saved, have your students revisit their responses more than once; they'll be able to see how their thinking changes as they learn.

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Editor's Note: Geddit has closed and is no longer available.

Geddit is an online student response tool with an extra piece: Students can choose signal bars to reflect their level of confidence with any given question. As with similar tools, teachers set up classes and lessons; students can respond anonymously using a mobile device. Geddit's "Lessons" are intended to last just for one class period. Within a Lesson, teachers can add Topics (used as organizational guides or brief directions), as well as related questions or polls to elicit student responses.

When students log in, they'll get a notification when a lesson has commenced. At this point and anytime during a lesson, students can indicate their perceived level of confidence using the "Geddit bars" tool. Students can also send short comments to the teacher (though teachers can't write back), indicating that they'd like help by clicking a hand symbol. Students do get immediate feedback on the multiple choice questions, and -- after a lesson is over -- can view completed lessons as an opportunity to reflect and review.

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Immediate feedback is often crucial to students' success, and Geddit provides this easily on multiple choice questions. What's more, lessons are saved in student accounts; making smartphone studying that much more practical. The real learning gem, though, is the site's ability to get students to reflect on their own thinking and learning. Students can review a lesson and muse, I totally thought I knew Africa's geography; where did I go wrong? or reflect, I didn't feel confident about LCD, but I can do fractions! Most kids will need some coaching, or even direct instruction, on how to make this kind of reflection meaningful, but Geddit provides a great template and opportunity for this higher-order thinking to take place.

The formatting could cause friction with a few of the features, particularly in the post-lesson views. For example, the Geddit signal bars don't show question titles, so coordinating confidence levels with questions could be a challenge for kids. For teachers, the process of creating topics and defining them clearly could be better supported. Nevertheless, in the overall experience, Geddit's got it where it counts; it's a solid way to encourage higher-level thinking and learning.

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Overall Rating
4
Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?
4

Students will love giving digital answers to real-time questions. Checking in with the signal bars gives immediate, private feedback that will keep them absorbed, but they'll miss comparing their ideas with class responses.

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?
4

Whether using pre-made or on-the-fly questions, it's a great formative assessment tool for teachers. The experience helps foster students' reflection and thought, and saved lessons offer opportunities for review.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?
3

A sleek process, clear directions, and posted resources make starting a snap. But support lags in areas of lesson design and implementation. Some site features confuse, without a route for answers.

Common Sense Reviewer
Christie Thomas Classroom teacher
About our ratings and privacy evaluation.

Teacher Reviews

5
(See all 4 reviews) (4 reviews)
Featured review by
Jeff A. , Classroom teacher
Classroom teacher
5
Letsgeddit.com is an easy-to-use digital platform that provides real-time actionable data on student comprehension levels, along with serving as a personalized self-assessment and student-teacher communication tool.

Great for enrichment in a traditional classroom and for targeted feedback in a self-paced, blended classroom. If students get ahead of the rest of the class, providing additional enrichment is as easy as clicking “ask question.” When different students are working on separate activities simultaneously, they can independently check their responses against exemplar answers to self-correct. This frees up the teacher to provide targeted support and small-group intervention. While I use this mostly for math-based chemistry questions, its uses extend to all subject areas.

By integrating metacognition and private communication into a simple question and answer platform, letsgeddit.com brings together a dynamic system of tools that any teacher can use to tweak lessons in real-time. Differentiation and formative assessment are the strongest weapons I have in my classroom, and letsgeddit.com plays an integral role in each.

Having said that, the fact that the lessons have to be started and stopped by the teacher (along with every question requiring a start and stop) for students to use them is a tad frustrating. But as the service is free, I can’t complain. Ideally, I would love to see the ability to attach learning targets to each question and then allow students to self-assess their understanding of those instead of individual questions. Then, those responses could be archived and displayed graphically to show students the improvement in comprehension that comes from increased exposure to each topic.

All in all, a high-quality edtech product. I highly recommend it.

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