Two useful iPad apps I used today for questioning were Team Shake and Socrative. Both take seconds to use and crucially do not disrupt the flow of the lesson. Firstly, I used team shake to randomly select students. they had been asked to think about what ‘fairness’ means. (Team Shake also has a useful group creation function too.) When someone pointed out (cleverly!) that this wasn’t entirely fair as not everyone’s opinions would be heard, I switched the second question to Socrative (the quick question function) and asked for examples of things in the world that were not fair – using the short answer tab. This enabled everyone to submit an answer. This feature of the app allows me to send all of the answers back to the rest of the class to read and then vote on the best. (You can eliminate unsuitable or duplicate answers before sending back.)
We had a much deeper discussion as a result of everyone participating on two separate levels for the second question.
gavin holden 