Online quizzes can take the sting out of assessment for teachers and students when used as study guides. Years ago I taught 140 eighth graders…what a great age (and I am being sincere). Unfortunately, there were a few students who had not developed good study skills so there were times when students did not do well on their unit tests. I always had an onslaught of students asking if they could doing anything to improve their grades following my unit tests. I wanted to give students an opportunity to redeem themselves, but gosh is was a lot more work for me. That’s when I discovered online quizzes!

I started to offer one-two nights that students could come in to the computer lab to take make-up quizzes online. Students were happy and I was happy because I did not have to spend a lot of extra time grading papers. Then, it dawned on me! Why not post an online quiz before students took their unit test! I started posting a pre-quiz test online a week before each unit test and told students that I would add points to their unit test based on their highest pre-quiz test score. In addition, I told students they could take a pre-quiz as many times as they wanted to, and I would only count the highest score. Well, of course you know the rest of the story…unit test scores soared. Unfortunately, the free programs I used to create those quizzes disappeared or started to charge for their services so I am always on the prowl for free alternative quizmaking tools. Today, I am sharing and reviewing one of my recent discoveries.

“MyStudiyo offers a rich solution for creating online quizzes. Make quizzes in just minutes and embed them in any website or invite players to your MyStudiyo Channel Page.” I found this application intuitive and easy to use, but would suggest that you try out both options. The second option gives you a place to provide feedback and assign point values to questions…I missed the point value option initially, so look for it as you are adding your questions. The second option also allows you to provide feedback on each answer. I used this feature to add images for younger students in my second sample below.

I was impressed with this Web 2.0 quizmaker from the standpoint that you can add a video, text (like a passage), or images to each question. This would be a great application to embed on your teacher website or blog. I especially like the fact that students can watch videos (that you have selected from TeacherTube or YouTube). Then, students can answer questions related to the embedded video. Just think…you could create an online quiz that included a preassessment prior to watching a video, as well as an assessment following the video. I want to point out a feature you might overlook that is pretty interesting and helpful in terms of assessment. There is a Reports and Statistics link on your My Quizzes page. See the screen shot below; you won’t want to overlook this neat feature.

Earlier in this post I quoted the site as being a rich resource and in some respects it is…it’s rich from the standpoint that you can add multimedia easily and I love the fact that you can embed quizzes on your blog or webpage. Still, I would not consider this application a heavy-hitter type of quizmaker since you can only create multiple choice questions or true/false questions (to create a true/false question simply fill in two of the blanks, instead of four). It is a fine product for younger students and simple review, but you will want to check my post tomorrow if you are looking for a quizmaker application that can be used to create a more challenging quiz.