wooclap

WOOCLAP

The founder’s idea is to make classes more enjoyable, more efficient, and most importantly, to improve the quality of lectures.
Generation Z is continuously trying to have experiences everywhere, including in the classroom.
In addition, researchers in neurosciences have determined that students’ attention drastically decreases after 10 minutes. By creating the web platform wooclap, they thought that instead of fighting smartphones, they can transform them into an exceptional learning tools.
The platform is available in 7 languages and it is used in more than 150 countries by universities, training organizations, and businesses who use it for their training sessions and conferences.

CLASSROOM RESPONSE SYSTEM

Pedagogical background
wooclap is an interactive platform that maximises the possibility for smartphones and computers to become exceptional learning tools that make learning awesome and effective.
It was developed in collaboration with neuroscientists, course technologists, and teachers to maximise information retention and enhance learning during lectures, whether in a classroom or remotely.
There is no app to download, nothing to install: students use a link to connect to the platform on their smartphone, tablet, or computer, and answer questions online.
wooclap is compatible with all teaching models (traditional, synchronous, asynchronous, distance, hybrid, HyFlex…) and integrates with many tools that teachers use on a daily basis (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Genially, Canvas, Microsoft Teams…).
This means they can use wooclap’s many question-types and features within their existing Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Open question by definition Classroom response systems, also called electronic student response systems, clickers, personal response systems, student response systems, or audience response systems are interactive remote answering devices that offer instructors a means to gain some simple real-time feedback from the audience.

This kind of tool can be effectively used in educational contexts for many purposes:

• as self assessment moment for students proposing questions to verify the acquired knowledge.
  Teacher can decide to add, at the end, a moment of clarification done by the teacher or among peers.
• as a moment to recall and to assess students’ understanding of important concepts.
• as immediate feedback on specific questions/problems.
• as recall questions.
  At the beginning of the lecture a teacher launches a poll to assess if students attended a previous lecture (useful for flipped classroom).
• as activation moment proposing contradictory questions to stimulate discussions; a poll to collect opinions.
• as self reflection about new topics: this process supports recall of previous, and often, implicit knowledge.

Assessment
It can be used for summative assessment or for formative assessment to stimulate reflection or critical thinking. This second option is the most interesting in terms of learning and soft skills development. Quizzes can be performed by students by themselves or during class: the tool automatically grades the performance.
The teacher can also prepare feedback (that is shown automatically by the tool) or discuss results in class together with students.
For instance in one of the cases analyzed the teacher gives students a question about a physics problem to be attempted individually. Then the teacher asks students to discuss among peers about their answers to the question in group of 2 or 3.
After few minutes he stops the discussion and he asks students to answer again individually. At the end the teacher shows the right answer.
This use of classroom response system has been undertaken in a large classroom (more than 200 students) to stimulate engagement, self reflection and discussion among peers.
With this platform students can also ask questions during the teacher’s presentation.

Use cases/examples of usage: (tutorial)

Strenght: It’s easy to use in classroom and in adult education conference, it’s free till 1.000 partecipants; with the free account you can do unlimited events.
The platform is available in 7 languages.

Weakness: With the free account you can do only 2 questions, over 1000 players is necessary to buy the license.

People opinion about the tool: https://www.g2.com/products/wooclap/reviews

Similar Tool: Socrative; Google Form; Clickers; Mentimeter; Kahoot; Survey Monkey.

Technical and operational requirements: PC in order to create the Play; a mobile/PC in order to play it.