July 06, 2006
Quia Assessment Tool-Technology Review #2
I downloaded and reviewed all of the assessment tools in Quia. I really like the variety of assessments that were available. Helpful tools included creating quizzes, activities, and surveys. I spent most of my time reviewing all of the types of activities that were available to create. Quia allows you to create a plethora of activities. I could not believe how simple it would be to use Quia to set up some pretty elaborate assessments. There were basic assessments such as flash cards, to scavenger hunts, even a challenge board whose layout looks like a Jeopardy board. I also liked the Quia site because it allowed you to view other assessments that had been created by teachers in different disciplines called the "shared activities area". I was very surpised at how many activities had been created in my discipline, business education. You usually cannot find a lot of "different" activities in the business education realm. There were categories for business, business law, accounting, computer applications, and computer literacy. If you would like to try out this tool click here. You can download a free 30 day trial.
I decided to create a challenge board using Quia. The challenge board lets the students pick a category and point value. They are given the question then asked to type in the answer. I chose to assess student knowledge in my Web Design class, in particular the first unit of the class which is Internet Concepts and HTML. That seems to be the most difficult topic for students to comprehend and demonstrate. I am always looking for "new" ways to help them review the key concepts of that first unit especially. According to the book, Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment from the Committee on the Foundations of Assessment, James W. Pellegrino, Naomi Chudowsky, and Robert Glaser (Eds.), "Practice and feedback are critical aspects of the development of skill and expertise. One of the most important roles for assessment is the provision of timely and informative feedback to students during instruction and learning so that their practice of a skill and its subsequent acquisition will be effective and efficient." l also feel that students perform better using an assessment tool that is computer based and one that they see as "fun". The challenge board does just that. I could have chosen other assessments that would have been highly effective for this type of activity. That was the one element of Quiz I like the most...flexibility!
To view my challenge board click here.
Posted by ascummings at July 6, 2006 05:44 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.bsu.edu/eidm/journal/mt/mt-tb.cgi/480