An Amazing 30 Minutes

I gave my students a self-graded quiz on Wednesday using a Google Form. When the students completed the exam and submitted the form I immediately got their answers and grades on the form's spreadsheet. I was able to tell the students their grades as soon as they completed the test.

When all of the students completed the exam, I used the Summary of Responses to show the class how everyone did and we reviewed the questions that students did not do well on. I could easily see what percentage of students didn't know the answer to a question. To download a pdf of the Summary of Responses click here.

This all took place in the span of one 30 minute period! I was psyched! To be able to have the students take the quiz, get their grades and review the answers in the same period enabled the students to get immediate responses and helped me address the questions that students did not answer correctly.

As an educator I felt that my time was not taken up with the grading of tests. I was able to use the data from the test to address student's learning in a timely manner and help them better learn the material.

Setting Up a Self-Grading Quiz

Setting up a self-grading test is easy with Google Apps. The three videos below will show you how to do this.

You may also want to download Chris Clementi's handout which is based on the videos.

Setting Up Your Test Part 1 - Writing the Questions

Setting Up Your Test Part 2 - Posting the Test and Setting Up the Answer Key

Setting Up Your Test Part 3 - Getting The Grades

Google Apps/Internet Safety

Back in the late 1960's when I was in junior high school we had wood shop. One of our projects was to make a sailboat out of two pieces of wood. We cut, carved and sanded the wood into the right shapes and then attached them to a piece of stained plywood that suggested the sea and the sky. The piece is till hanging in my parent's home. The object of the class was to give the boys in the class experience with tools and carpentry to prepare us for the second half of the 20th century.

At the school I teach in we are preparing our students for the 21st century by using Google Apps as a safe haven where students can use 21st century tools within the confines of our school community. The students have email, sites, docs and more so that they can safely experience using collaborative digital tools.

My sixth-grade students recently finished Google Apps safety videos. The videos started out with students writing scripts on Google Apps Safety based on discussions and presentations made in class.

Then the students used Comic Life, a Mac OS app, to storyboard the script and set up place holders for the images. Photos where then taken, imported into iPhoto and then used in Comic Life. iPhoto and Comic Life play together nicely.

When the Comic Life text and images were done the Comic Life pages were then exported back to iPhoto. Once this was done the students used iMovie to import the Comic Life images and add voice overs. The completed movies were exported as DV files and posted on our school's YouTube channel.

I have posted some fo the videos below: