EDCompass blog gathered some ideas on how you and your students can use SMART Response VE interactive response system and personal mobile devices to enhance lessons.

How it works
The browser-based product integrates with SMART Notebook collaborative learning software and enables students to respond to questions and quizzes from Internet-enabled phones or devices. Download the 30-day trial and explore how to use it with your students this fall.

Teachers at Charleston County School District in South Carolina have been using the beta version of Response VE since last fall and have incorporated it into their 1:1 learning initiative with iPads. Kristen Brittingham, the district’s technology specialist says, “Our favorite feature of SMART Response VE is having the question displayed on the iPad screen. This allows students to work at their own pace and meets differentiated learning needs.”

Deeper understanding
Did you know that beyond assessment, Response VE can help facilitate some interesting student-generated learning and discussion? Consider dividing your class into smaller groups, each with access to a personal device. You can ask a short answer question pertaining to your lesson such as “What was the cause of World War 1?” The groups can conduct research on their devices and use Response VE to offer up answers, which you can then use as discussion points.

Check out the lesson activities on the SMART Exchange website for ideas on using VE to stretch students’ understanding of a concept. In the Road to revolution activity on the American Revolution, students learn that history is based on a series of decisions that each result in a different outcome. They view a video on each page and use the material available to make a call and help them answer a question after every video.

Since six question types are available in Response VE, you have the flexibility to craft your lesson the way you want so you can get a quick and deep understanding of students’ mastery of a lesson before moving on. Consider structuring your SMART Notebook collaboration software file using true-or-false, yes-or-no, multiple choice, numeric response, multiple answer and text response.

Remote participation
With Response VE,teachers are not limited to using a certain number or type of devices in the classroom. This opens up a variety of possibilities for remote participation. For example,even if a student is at home, as long as they have access to their mobile device, they can take part in the assessment.

Similarly, the software provides benefits for teaching and assessing groups of students located in rural communities who wish to take certain courses not offered at their school. Teachers offering this instruction can simply use SMART Bridgit conferencing software or a similar software to teleconference the other class in and run the same assessment. The devices the students use in these two classrooms (or multiple classrooms) may differ but this doesn’t matter since VE works the same on all of them.

If you’re integrating personal student devices with SMART products in your classroom, we’d love to hear about it. Please start a conversation below in the comment section.