Trying Out Quizlet in the Classroom

SJHS adopted the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in October, so these last few weeks were the my first real foray into integrating devices into my classroom. We were using cell phones to look-up words for vocabulary and affix study before this, but I finally had a chance to look at some of the apps that could be useful in my classroom.

Since we were studying for midterm exams this week, I decided that a good app to utilize with exam prep was Quizlet.  Quizlet is a free app on the IPhone app store, but not on the Android app store. 



Quizlet app

Android Mobile Browser

Those students with an Android phone could use the mobile browser to sign-up for the service, though.  Quizlet allows students to use and create flashcards for their classes.  It also has a few games for student to test themselves on the class content, as well.

 

     

I set-up classes for IBMYP English 9, English 10, and English 11 that focused on the literary terms, vocabulary, and character lists for the three novels that we read (The Time Machine, The Scarlet Letter, and Night.  At first, it was very time-consuming to enter all of the terms and definitions.  After completing one of my classes, though, I noticed that if you click "Auto-define" under the entry, it will give you choices from other quizlet users that already created the same entry, so this saved a lot of time when I was creating the entries for my classes.  All told, I probably spent a few hours setting up each class with approximately six or seven sets of an average of 10 entries each.  

I previewed the app by putting the website on the smartboard and showing them how to use the flashcards online, then showed them the app on my IPhone.  The kids were very excited about the fact that they could download an app and use it for my class, since this was the first time we did this.  Not all of the students have a smartphone or internet access on their phone, so those who did not have a phone looked at their neighbor's.  They each had to sign-up for the app with a username (school appropriate, since everyone will see their username) and password, then search for my name and class - luckily I have an original name and was easy to find.  After they found my class, they had to add my class on the class info tab.  Once they requested to be added, I had to add them as an administrator.  They immediately began to use the app and compete against each other on the scatter and the space race game, which quizzed them on the terms through games. 

Although I have only been using it for a few days, it seems to be a hit with the students.  I have already added about half of the students to my class, so I need to find out who has not been added due to lack of a smartphone or other reason.  The next day after I introduced it, one of my struggling students mentioned that while he was using the app, his mother told him to stop playing games on his phone, so he showed her that he was using the it to study and she was surprised!  He also hoped that other teachers would use it, as well, because he needed the extra help.  That being said, I guess I need to see what impact it has on my midterm exam grades.