Tuesday, May 15, 2012

SMILE

Monday my students had the opportunity to use an app developed at Stanford called SMILE (Stanford Mobile Interactive Learning Environment). The interface of the app is very simple. Students type in a question, along with multiple choice responses. They indicate which of the choices is correct. They can easily include a photo, video, or audio with their question.

Once a question is submitted, students answer each others' questions. They also have the opportunity to rate the question using 1-5 stars and there is space for them to comment on the question.

Since we're finishing up open house projects this week the time to play with the app was very limited. However, groups of students quickly grasped the concept. They were sharing suggestions about what good answer options would be so that the correct answer wasn't too obvious. Even though I didn't demonstrate how to add a photo, a few groups figured it out and put one in. When it came time to answer questions, I was pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback they gave each other, "great question" as well as explaining why they picked an answer that was not marked as the "correct" one.

I think there was a lot of higher level thinking and cooperating going on and I look forward to more time spent with the app. It made me realize that I don't spend much time teaching/discussing how to question.

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