Are you looking for something lighter than a rubric or pre/post test, but still useful in PD sessions? Perhaps you want to vibe code your way to a standalone icebreaker personality quiz you can use with your students? That’s how I started. I wanted a fun, low-stakes icebreaker, a way for educators to reflect on their teaching style. Of course, I also wanted to test out another vibe coding solution, using Gen AI to develop a website, interactive personality quiz. In this two part blog entry, I’ll share how to build a custom GPT and then how to turn it into a standalone website. You might start with a personality quiz, then graduate to an online entry/exit ticket or icebreaker.
In this part, we’ll explore first how to create a custom GPT. Then, in part two, we’ll turn it into an interactive webpage you can host for free on GitHub. Finally, in part three, I’ll share how you can save the data from the interactive webpage to Google Sheets.
Creating an Engaging, Fun Personality Quiz
One of my favorite personality quizzes online is, “Which character are you?” You have probably taken a few of these on Facebook. What bothers me about those quizzes is the collection of personal data. A question in my mind was, “How could I design a privacy-safe, fun personality quiz for teachers?”
Winnie the Pooh seemed the best place to start. I love the characters of the 100-acre wood, and my family often identifies with Pooh and characters. Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore? Maybe you are Owl or Roo?
By popular demand from my work colleagues, I also wanted the quiz to sort educators into characters they were familiar with. So, in addition to Winnie the Pooh, they wanted:
The Smurfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Looney Tunes
Each quiz would end with a playful answer: “You’re Tigger as a teacher,” or “You’re Brainy Smurf in the classroom.” The results included a short description of what that character is like as a teacher.
Starting with the Problem, Not the Tool
While I wish I could say I began with the end in mind, I had only a vague idea. I started a conversation with ChatGPT and the adjustments came over time. After working with colleagues, I had to add different universes (e.g. Smurfs, Looney Tunes) because I had different colleagues ask, “Could you please make an assessment for Looney Tunes or Smurfs, etc.?” The first one I started with included Winnie the Pooh characters. At the end, I ended up with several additional considerations:
Each quiz uses a single universe (Pooh, Smurfs, Snow White, or Looney Tunes).
Each quiz has exactly five multiple-choice questions.
Questions appear one at a time.
The quiz waits for the user’s answer before moving on.
At the end, the GPT assigns one character based on the most frequent trait pattern.
The result explains what kind of teacher that character would be.
Again, these developed over time via an interactive conversation with ChatGPT. Then, I asked ChatGPT to give me the custom instructions for the GPT. At that point, I had something to work with.
Want to try this out on your own? If you have a paid account for an AI chatbot (such as BoodleBox Unlimited, ChatGPT Plus/Teams/Education/Enterprise, Google Gemini Gem, Claude Project/Artifact), you can use the custom instructions in this Google Doc to get started. Simply save the instructions as a text file or markdown content with a filename extension of TXT. The filename and extension would be instructions.txt.
Designing the Quiz Flow with ChatGPT
Next, I focused on behavior, not characters. I asked ChatGPT to sketch the flow of a single quiz from start to finish. The prompt looked something like this:
Help me design a personality quiz flow for educators.
Five questions, multiple choice.
Ask questions one at a time.
Wait for an answer before showing the next question.
At the end, analyze answers and assign a single character type.
Make it easy to convert into Custom GPT instructions later.
ChatGPT responded with a simple sequence:
Greet the user and explain the quiz theme.
Ask Question 1 with answer options A–D.
Wait for an answer.
Record the trait associated with that option.
Repeat for Questions 2–5.
Tally which trait pattern appears most.
Map that pattern to a character.
Present the result with a short, teacher-focused description.
This became the framework for every quiz, no matter the universe.
Building the Character Library
As I mentioned earlier, some of my colleagues wanted to know which Smurf or Looney Tunes character they would be. The chatbot provided the descriptions of each character. Of course, the magic is that this would happen no matter what universe they are in:
Winnie the Pooh: Kind, gentle, loyal. As a teacher: Warm, welcoming, always encouraging.
Piglet: Timid, anxious, brave when it counts. As a teacher: Patient, supportive, nurturing confidence.
Tigger: Energetic, optimistic, adventurous. As a teacher: Fun, engaging, brings excitement to learning.
Rabbit: Organized, responsible, a bit fussy. As a teacher: Structured, caring, focused on progress.
I repeated the process for:
The Smurfs (Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Brainy, Hefty, etc.)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Snow White, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, etc.)
Looney Tunes (Bugs, Daffy, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, etc.)
Each question’s options pointed to the traits of one or more characters. At the end of five questions, the most frequently tapped trait pattern determined the result. Describing this takes longer than the actual amount of time spent asking the Gen AI chatbot to do this.
Turning the Model into Custom GPT Instructions
Once the Project worked well, I asked it to give me the custom instructions (a.k.a. system prompt) for the Custom GPT.
Take our quiz flow and character descriptions and turn them into Custom GPT instructions.
The GPT should offer a menu of quiz themes (Pooh, Smurfs, Snow White, Looney Tunes).
Once the user chooses one, it should explain the quiz and start with Question 1.
It must not skip ahead. Wait for each answer.
After five questions, it should assign a character and explain what kind of teacher that character would be.
Always keep the tone warm and educator-friendly.
Display this image at the start:.
Again, with some interactive back-and-forth with the chatbot, ChatGPT generated a set of “rules.” Those rules included:
How to greet users
How to present the image
How to guide quiz selection
How to enforce the one-question-at-a-time rule
How to tally responses and deliver a result
This became the backbone of my Custom GPT, ensuring a reliable response each time. You can see the custom instructions here that I relied on.
Testing, Tuning, and Making It Teacher-Friendly
The last step was trial and error. I found volunteers to run through the various iterations and it turned out to be a wild success. People love fun personality quizzes. As I tested it, I saw different ways to improve it, such as:
Simplifying question wording
Balancing answer choices
Softening language for more hesitant audiences
Ensuring the final descriptions felt affirming, not judgmental
At the end, I had a Custom GPT that educators could enjoy in a PD session, department meeting, or just for fun. The quiz is not about labels. It is about language for talking about how we show up in the classroom. It also served as a way to introduce people unfamiliar with Gen AI to a custom GPT.
Pondering Next Steps, an Interactive Webpage
The next step became obvious after I tried it with others who lacked a ChatGPT account. How could I move this beyond the OpenAI Custom GPT space? Doing so would allow anyone to take the personality quiz via a simple link, no ChatGPT account required. What’s more, I’d be able to create similar assessments that could avoid OpenAI’s strictures of adult learners only. In part two of AI Maker Magic, you will see how to use vibe coding to turn this quiz into an interactive webpage.
Formative assessments play a vital role in understanding student progress and adapting teaching strategies for better learning outcomes. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), educators now have access to a wide array of tools that can transform the way they create and use formative assessments in the classroom. Let’s explore some AI-powered tools that help teachers develop effective formative assessments:
What Is Formative Assessment?
Formative assessment is an ongoing way for teachers to check student understanding of what’s being taught. It gives the teacher information about how students are doing while they are still learning new material. Formative assessments can help identify concepts students are struggling with so teachers can adjust instruction, review, and reteach if needed. Examples of formative assessment include questioning during class discussions, quick writing or drawing assignments to show what they learned, practice quizzes, exit tickets, and more.
Six Tools for Creating Formative Assessments
1. ChatGPT
You can always ask ChatGPT or your favorite AI chatbot to create a formative assessment. An example prompt you could use is, “Generate a list of [number] formative assessment ideas related to [insert topic] for my [grade level and subject] students.” Just replace each bracket with the information for each prompt. You can also ask ChatGPT to align your formative assessments with specific learning objectives. In addition, differentiate your formative assessments by asking ChatGPT to give you five assessment ideas using a variety of modalities like exit tickets, quizzes, graphic organizers, etc.
2. Conker
Screenshot by Emily Horn | Conker Create Page
Conker lets you create fast quizzes and formative assessments that can be differentiated by question type, grade level, and more. It will also allow you to copy/paste reading material to generate quizzes. All you have to do is open Conker and provide details about the quiz you want to create. Conker will then create a short formative assessment you can assign to students with a code or export it to Google Forms. You can even create a printable question sheet and answer sheet. There is a limited free plan, and teacher registration is required.
3. Magic School AI
Screenshot taken by Emily Horn | MagicSchool’s Magic Tools Page
Magic School AI offers several tools and features that can be valuable for creating and implementing formative assessments in your classroom. This tool allows you to quickly build multiple-choice quizzes tailored to specific topics or standards. You can customize difficulty levels, question types, and answer keys to assess students’ base knowledge and readiness for new learning. In addition, you can generate quick reflection prompts or questions to collect student understanding at the end of a lesson. Then, you can quickly analyze the responses to identify areas for further clarification or address common misconceptions before moving on. There are both free and paid versions of the program. Learn even more about Magic School AI here.
4. QuestionWell
Screenshot by Emily Horn | QuestionWell’s Create Set Page
QuestionWell generates questions so teachers can focus on what matters. Start by identifying the topic, content, and grade level. If you have text you want your formative assessment based on, you can provide it, but it isn’t necessary. Then, the AI will write questions. In the free version of QuestionWell, you can create a multiple-choice quiz with 20 questions. Once the questions are generated, select which ones you want to include in the quiz. Then, you can export the questions to tools like Google Forms, Kahoot, Canvas, Microsoft Word, and more.
5. Quiz Wizard
Screenshot by Emily Horn | Quiz Wizard’s Create Content Page
Quiz Wizard is an AI-powered tool that generates multiple-choice questions and flashcards that can be used for formative assessments within seconds. The process is straightforward and involves you entering the topic of your choice into the tool, and Quiz Wizard takes care of the rest by generating unique questions and answers. The content can be exported to other platforms, like Microsoft Word.
6. Quizizz AI
Screenshot by Emily Horn | Quizziz AI’s Create Page
Quizizz AI is an artificial intelligence-powered tool that can generate multiple-choice questions with four answer options. The tool can also automatically determine the appropriate number of questions to generate for a formative assessment from the content provided. You can create a quiz by uploading a document, entering text, or pasting a link to a webpage. Quizizz AI offers free and paid premium versions.
These AI-powered tools offer not only instant feedback but also insights into individual student needs, allowing you to tailor your instruction effectively. By leveraging these AI tools, you can create a dynamic and adaptive learning environment, fostering student engagement and growth.
The weeks before school gets out for any break are probably not the best time for deep learning or introducing new content. Students (and the teachers) are already thinking about being out and dreaming of what they will do during the break. But what can we do to ensure learning is still happening? Well, it’s a great time to create a variety of quizzes for reviewing content introduced throughout the year and to practice discussion skills while working in teams. To make these tasks easier, let’s explore a variety of AI tools for making quizzes.
This is by far my favorite AI tool for making quizzes, especially if I want to quiz students using a particular platform. QuestionWell will create the questions and export them to the following platforms: Quizizz, Kahoot, Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, Gimkit, Blooket, Quizlet,Google Forms, Google Slides, Blackboard, Microsoft Forms, Socrative, and Microsoft Word. You currently can’t do this with Google Bard, ChatGPT, or Microsoft Bing. Start by identifying the topic, content, and grade level. If you have text you want questions based on, you can provide it, but it isn’t necessary. In the free version of QuestionWell, you can create a multiple-choice quiz with 20 questions. Once the questions are generated, select which ones you want to include in the quiz. Then, choose the export destination. Voila!
MagicSchool
Screenshot by Emily Horn: MagicSchool.AI Home Page
MagicSchool is an excellent interface that gives you the benefit of identifying the grade level target for your audience. It’s a solid AI tool for making quizzes. Granted, you could easily put it in your prompt, but no need to do that with MagicSchool. MagicSchool offers a lot of tools, which is great for folks who aren’t interested in learning how to create effective prompts. I chose the Multiple Choice Assessment Generator tool. For my quiz, I selected 5th grade, identified 10 questions, and shared the prompt in the description area. The quiz questions were neatly generated to the right of the prompt with an answer key following. I was impressed with the questions and layout on the first try.
Using Major AI Assistants
ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, and Perplexity Logos
Not all AI assistants are created equal. While one may be phenomenal on a particular task, it might falter and really miss the mark on a completely different type of task. So, when creating a quiz, try your prompt on several different AI assistants. I wanted to try out the top AI tools to see how they fair for making quizzes. Here is an example prompt that I used and the first results generated by four different AI assistants. I reviewed the first response to the prompt below; I did not ask it to regenerate a response. My goal was to find a tool that creates the best product on the first try.
The Results
Prompt: Create a 10-question multiple choice quiz on [SUBJECT]. For each question, there should be four answer choices. Create an answer key that identifies the correct answer but also gives a sentence for each wrong answer as to why it is wrong. SUBJECT = Christmas traditions
Claude: Overall, Anthropic’s Claude did an excellent job as an AI tool for making quizzes. Instead of giving me a sentence for each wrong answer explaining why it was wrong, it gave me a sentence that shared why all three wrong answers were wrong. It wasn’t necessarily poorly done, but it didn’t exactly follow my explicit prompt as written.
ChatGPT: I ran the prompt in 3.5 and 4. With GPT4, it didn’t surprise me that it produced the format exactly as I asked in my prompt. The quiz questions were given first with an answer key following the quiz, which is convenient if I want to copy/paste into another program and keep questions and answers separate. When I ran the prompt in GPT3.5, it intermingled the answer key with the quiz. Out of the two, I would opt for ChatGPT Plus (4) as an AI tool for making quizzes if I have a choice.
Bard: I like Bard, but I was disappointed with the results. It stopped in mid-sentence on question 9. And, of the nine questions produced before stopping, answer choice “A” was the correct answer for seven of them. If I were giving this to my students, I would need to do additional work to randomize the answers and produce additional questions.
Perplexity: Perplexity did the nicest job out of these four AI tools when it comes to making quizzes. It generated the quiz first with the answer key at the end. If I were using this with my students, it would make it easier to copy/paste to a Google Doc or other medium for sharing without needing to pull out the correct/wrong answer information with each question.
Which Should You Use?
If you want to write your prompt and use an AI assistant to create your product, I recommend ChatGPT4 or Perplexity. These two would require the least amount of edits and work on your part. I was surprised to notice that there were a lot of questions common across the tools, though some were unique. However, if you want an excellent interface where you don’t have to create or tweak prompts, you will find QuestionWell and MagicSchool to be great options. Which AI tool will you try for making quizzes? Tell us and share your prompt in the comments below!
Regardless of our background, we all have some technology experience and knowledge. But if you have a lot of experience with technology, then your friends may see you as a nerd. For those that are really tech-oriented, you’ve already embraced the “nerd” label and see it as something to pass down to your kids. So, here are some challenges you can try with your Google Assistant to take your nerdiness to the next level. You are likely to find that the answers are not the ones you learned in class.
Set Up Your Google Home Device
If you don’t have a Google Home device set up yet, you will need to begin by doing that. I have a Google Home in my office at work. Here is a quick start guide for setting up your Google Home device on your home network. Once you have this done, you are ready to start playing around with the different features that are available.
Test Your Knowledge and Extend Your Learning
Here are some quizzes and information to get you started. As with any technology, be sure to adequately preview it before sharing with your students and parents.
Tech Challenge – http://bit.ly/GAtechchallenge – Try your skill at answering a variety of technical questions. Though I find it hard to understand some of the questions with the accent used by my assistant, I am able to get a few correct. When I don’t do well, I just blame it on the accent. You can try this by saying, “Can I speak to Tech Challenge?”
Mr. Shortquiz – http://bit.ly/GAmrshortquiz – Your ability of knowing founders and current techie CEO’s will help with this challenge. To play, say, “Can I talk to Mr. Shortquiz?”
Technology Trivia – http://bit.ly/GAtechnologytrivia – See how well you do on five questions, all related to technology trivia. Just initiate this quiz by saying, “Talk to Technology Challenge.”
Guess the Crypto Currency – http://bit.ly/GAguessthecryptocurrency – If you have dabbled in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or one of the other cryptocurrencies, then you may have a chance at scoring well. Check your knowledge by saying, “Guess the Crypto Currency.”
Tech Founders – http://bit.ly/GAtechfounders – If you stay up on who started which tech firm, then you should do well with this quiz. Otherwise, you may learn some trivia that you can use to impress your friends. Start the quiz by saying, “Talk to Tech Founders.”
STEM Women – http://bit.ly/GAstemwomen – Designed to highlight women in STEM careers, you’ll find this interesting as well as informative. Start by saying, “Talk to STEM Women.”
Mister Programmer – http://bit.ly/GAmisterprogrammer – This quiz doesn’t test your knowledge of one particular programming language but of several. Good luck. Start by saying, “Talk to Mister Programmer.”
Mr. CS – http://bit.ly/GAmrcs – How well do you know the fundamentals of computer science, including operating systems, OOPS concepts, DBMS, and networking? You will soon find out after you say, “Talk to Mr. CS.”
Java Gyann – http://bit.ly/GAtalktojavagyaan – With this quiz, you will be expected to have a good understanding of Java. Gyann means knowledge and is pronounce je-on. See how well you know Java by saying, “Talk to Java Gyaan.”
Basic Python – http://bit.ly/GAbasicpython – Practice your knowledge of Python by seeing how well you can answer these programming language questions on it. Just say, “Talk to Basic Python.”
Create Your Own
You may have found one of those skills interesting and challenging, but would like to create your own. Well, you can! You can create trivia action using Actions on Google templates. Double check to make sure that your Google device is connected to the same account that you are using when creating actions (a small, but critical, detail that I learned the hard way). If you prefer to watch videos showing how to create a Google quiz, then check out these tutorials. This is a great way to create personalized assessments that coordinate with your instruction. Once you get the process polished, consider having students participate in the creation process!
With the new Alexa Blueprints program, Amazon is making it possible for anyone, including educators, to create their own Alexa skills easy-to-use templates. You don’t even need to know how to code or program. Teachers can create quizzes in minutes by filling in just a couple of blanks.
Getting Started with Alexa Blueprints
To get started, go to this website. Log in with whatever Amazon account you use for Alexa. Once you log in, you’ll see a list of possible skills you can customize. To create your quiz, follow the three easy steps below:
Step 1: Pick the Quiz Template
Under the Learning & Knowledge section, select Quiz. Then select the Make Your Own button.
Step 2: Fill on the Blanks
Enter your questions and correct answers in the template. Note that you can include follow-up facts if you would like. With this in mind, you can enter more details about the question to increase student learning. After entering your questions, select the Next: Experience button.
Now you can customize the Alexa experience in the following ways:
Add you own individualized introduction.
Select a unique sound that will play along with your introduction.
Customize the quiz responses in order to provide personalized feedback when correct or incorrect answers are selected.
Add custom sounds, like crowds cheering, when a correct answer is selected in order to heighten student engagement.
Lastly, select the Next: Name button.
Step 3: Use It
Enter the name of your quiz. However, be aware that Alexa is still learning first and last names. For best results, use common words. Now, select the Next: Create Skill button. Wait a few minutes and begin using your quiz with your students.
What’s Next?
To sum up, teachers who have access to the Amazon Echo technology should be creating tons of quizzes with this easy-to-use template. It’s a great way to create an interactive formative assessment and promote student learning through engagement. In addition, some other templates include flash cards and storytelling tools that let you create your own interactive and personalized stories. Give them a try.
This Thanksgiving, why not give thanks by utilizing Google Forms in the classroom? I have been thankful ever since I began using Google Forms; it makes real-time work and collaboration a creative joy. Here are some classroom applications of Google Forms this Thanksgiving.
Have students complete a Today I’m Thankful Because Google Form with things they are thankful for. Students complete a form, then the teacher can generate a list of their responses and display some of the commonalities. Another idea is to generate a word cloud from the list. The word cloud below was created using Wordclouds.com. It allowed me to paste the list from my Google Sheet and then upload an image of a turkey to use as an outline.
You can extend this activity by having students:
Write descriptive paragraphs in Google Docs about the things they are thankful for.
Create posters in Google Drawings of their thankful lists.
Draft letters to people they are thankful for using a Google Doc template.
Rely on Google Forms to quiz your students on the history of Thanksgiving. This quizfocuses on the turkey traditions at the White House. The President of the United States pardons a turkey on the eve of Thanksgiving at a White House ceremony. This tradition of compassion dates back fifty years to Harry Truman. Test your knowledge.
President Barack Obama, National Turkey Federation Chairman Gary Cooper; son Cole Cooper participate in the annual National Thanksgiving Turkey pardon ceremony in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Nov. 26, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Try these quiz ideas:
Learn how Thanksgiving became a national holiday. Embed a video about the history of Thanksgiving on your Google Form. Then quiz your students.
Compare the first Thanksgiving dinner in colonial times to the one we celebrate with today. Students delight in the differences. You can also have them share what unique foods they will see on their Thanksgiving table.
Quiz students about fun facts about turkeys. Enable them to use multimedia to share what they learn about these fascinating birds.
Students love to read “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories. Therefore, why not let them create their own story using Google Forms? These stories can be created by taking advantage of section breaks in Google Forms. When an option is selected on the form, it will go to a unique page about that particular answer. Before getting started, it will be very helpful to have students brainstorm their ideas by creating an outline first.
Check out this short Thanksgiving story I created. It tells a story about what I will do on Thanksgiving Day. Another idea is to give your students a writing prompt for their story such as:
If you could have any guest at Thanksgiving, who would it be?
What would happen if a scarecrow joined you for dinner?
You have magically become a pilgrim. Describe your day.
My family’s Thanksgiving traditions
My favorite Thanksgiving story
The best part of Thanksgiving break
These are just a few ways to use Google Forms this Thanksgiving. I can’t think of a better time of the year to engage the imagination of your students and encourage them to be creative. Let us know in the comments below how you are using Google Forms in the classroom.
This blog was updated on May 21, 2016 to include new information.
Researchers from the Pew Research Center have found that gamifying learning stimulates interest and deep engagement with content. Two tools that facilitate this include Kahoot! and the relative newcomer, Quizizz.
Quizizz allows you to create multi-player quizzes that work on almost any device. What’s more, you can access others’ assessments that can be completed in class or assigned as homework. With your free account, you can export the results as well. Teachers create their account and publish the link to the Quizizz. Then students, working at their own pace, complete the quiz using any Internet-connected mobile device. The more quickly they respond, the more points they gain.
Quizizz has more customizable features than Kahoot!, including the ability to mix up the order of the questions and the answers for each student, the ability to show the correct answer after each question, and the ability to display a Quiz Review at the end that shows all questions. In addition, the teacher can turn off the timer and choose to show a Leaderboard (for greater gamification).
Quizizz enlivens the quiz with music and silly “correct” or “incorrect” images drawn from popular media. As the teacher, once the quiz is over, you can access data and analyze reports. The raw results can be exported, as shown in the screenshot below, to Excel format:
If a Quizizz is assigned as homework, the teacher can set a deadline for completion of up to 15 days from the start. Students can then complete the quiz at home. Some teachers are allowing their students to take the quiz over again repeatedly to raise their score (and learn the content even more!).
You can also integrate Quizizz with Google Classroom! Some of the features of Google Classroom integration include the following: 1) Quizizz reports will show the actual names of your students; 2) Student safety is enhanced since they are logging in with their Google accounts; and 3) Facilitate assignment tracking since completion reports are available in Google Classroom.
A new feature recently added to Quizizz is internationalization. If you click on the American flag in the upper right corner, you can change from English to Spanish. More languages will be coming soon.
Three ways to take Quizizz to the next level:
Use the tool to facilitate “College Bowl” competition that pits teams against each other.
Have students design quiz content for each other to highlight key content ideas and topics.
Take a team-based approach to quizzes that works like this: Have students take the test and discuss what they got right or wrong. Then have them take the quiz as a group. This facilitates higher-order thinking and focus teams on the subject material.
Teachers are constantly engaged in the process of formative assessment. Without the regular use of formative assessment, or checks for understanding, how are teachers to know what each student needs in order to be successful in the classroom? Teachers have many strategies and tools from which to choose. Learn about a few below.
Exit Tickets – Exit tickets can be a great way to set up the next day’s learning. Before students leave class, they can be asked for an “exit ticket” that provides insight into what they learned from the day’s activities. For a digital exit ticket, try creating a Google Form that asks students about their thoughts on a lesson or have students create a short, three-panel comic strip outlining the day’s most valuable key idea.
Graphic Organizers – Graphic organizers can be used to assess prior knowledge, record learning during a lecture or class reading, or organize knowledge after learning. Some examples include Venn diagrams, word/idea webs, or concept maps. Google Drawing, Gliffy, Bubbl.us, and Mindmeister are always great options for creating digital graphic organizers. For word clouds, try Wordle, Word It Out, or Word Mosaic.
Quick Write – With quick writes, you can ask students to respond to an open-ended question or prompt. This can be done before, during, or after the lesson. Some useful tools for this include Chatzy, Today’s Meet, and Padlet. A few others to check out are Active Prompt and Lino. Don’t forget to remind students to share something unique and not repeat a classmate’s answer.
Quizzes – Quizzes assess students for factual information and concepts for which there is usually a single best answer. Quizzes are great for on-the-fly assessment. Socrative can be used for quick quizzes, as well as Kahoot!, which lets you build fun into your quizzes. Students can use computers, cell phones, or other devices to join in and answer the questions.
Recall – Recalling information allows students to list the most important concepts they learned or things that were meaningful to them. Try having students make a list – in words or simple phrases – and rank them in order of importance, like a Top Ten List. Try using List.ly or Listmoz to create digital lists.
Remember that the true value of doing formative assessments lies in what happens afterwards when you take the data and change your teaching strategies and processes to reflect what you’ve learned and to better serve each student.
If you want to learn about more formative assessment digital tools, join us on December 9, 2015 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Central for our Lunch and Learn webinar, free to members. Register HERE today!
By now, most of you have tried Kahoot!, the game-based student response system that is a wonderful tool for formative assessment. The teacher creates a free account and then can design quizzes with embedded images and video or use one of the millions of already-created quizzes. Students respond to the quiz using any device with Internet access. The faster they respond, the more points they score. In addition, teachers can create items in Surveys, which does not use points, or Discussions, which are single questions without points that can be used at the beginning of a unit to get ideas flowing.
Accessing the Data
Kahoot! is lots of fun and really engages students. But you may not know that, once the quiz is over, there is good data that you can access and analyze. After logging in to her account, the teacher can look at data from each quiz by clicking on the cloud download icon next to the name of each quiz. This will download an Excel spreadsheet that includes a minimum of three tabs: an overview of the total percentage of correct and incorrect answers, ratings from students on the activity, and a detailed breakdown of each student’s answers and the time they took for each question. This last tab is color coded to make it a quick read with correct responses in green and incorrect ones in red. All of this data is automatically generated and is an excellent resource to guide future instruction.
Taking Kahoot! to the Next Level
Here are some other great ideas for taking your Kahoot! to the next level.
If your students are using iOS or Android devices, you can have them add a quick link to the game on their home screens with these guides. There is also a free Android app and a free iPad app for Kahoot! that you may download.
Have a class-to-class battle. Use the link in the Results page to get one class to play against the results of a previous class.
Do you have students who want to take the quiz again? Now they can in Ghost Mode. Once a quiz is over, you will see a Play Again button that contains a ghost icon. When you click on the button, the same quiz is re-launched. Now, as the class plays again live, all students are joined by their “ghosts,” their previous answers. So students can easily see how they did before on each question and try to increase their score. This is a good way to increase retention.
Use the Send a Link feature to provide the link to each student after they’ve played it once in class. Then ask them to take the quiz again at home to try and beat their previous score.
If your class has a partner class in another location, the teacher can use the Send a Link tool to share a completed ghost game with them. This can give your students the chance to compete against others around the world.
For a major holiday, create a Kahoot! and share it with other classes who will all play the game at the same time. You could do an Earth Day game, one for Martin Luther King Day, or just one over a particular math skill.
Keep a Leaderboard of high scores in Kahoot! and watch your students try to reach the top.
New Features
Kahoot has upped its game by adding a Team Mode. Students get into teams with just one device between them. The teacher opens up a Kahoot! and now has the choice of selecting between Classic and Team Mode. Team captains (kids holding the devices) enter their team’s name and their players’ nicknames. Then they begin the game. This will be great for helping kids learn to work together or for those classrooms where devices are limited.
Another recent feature is Ghost Mode, which allows a student to play against himself. This is a good way for students to informally assess themselves to see if they are mastering the required content. They can play the same review game over and over, comparing their current score with their previous ones.
The latest Kahoot! update offers Jumble, a new game format. Like earlier games, Jumble has students take part in quizzes. But in the update, players are challenged to place the answers in the correct order by dragging and dropping rather than just selecting one correct answer.
On May 2, Kahoot! announced two Windows apps. Kahoot Create is the app for teachers to use to create and run Kahoot quiz games. Kahoot Play is the app for students to use to play a Kahoot game individually or in team mode. Both apps are now available in the Windows Store
Updates from ISTE
At the ISTE conference in San Antonio, Kahoot! unveiled a new mobile app for the game. What’s great about the app is that now both the questions and the answers will appear on the student screens. (Before, students had to look at the projected image in the classroom to see the question and then answer it on their own devices.) It also includes Challenges that can be issued by the teacher or by students to each. You can preview the new app (available in both Android and iOS) by signing up to be a beta tester here.
New: Kahoots Aligned to the Math Standards!
Kahoot! has now released some wonderful resources for math teachers. These quizzes are aligned to the national standards and are top quality. Additional games for science and ELA will also be coming soon.
Additional new features will be added. To make sure you have access to them, go into any of your Kahoots as if you were going to start the game. You’ll see a new option called Kahoot! Experiments. Turn this on and a list of add-ons will appear. Right now, the only one is Answer Streak Bonus, which is designed to reward player accuracy with bonus points for correctly answering multiple questions in a row. Get an answer wrong, and the streak is broken.
This post was updated on September 2, 2017 to include new features.
Kahoot has upped its game by adding a Team Mode. Students get into teams with just one device between them. The teacher opens up a Kahoot! and now has the choice of selecting between Classic and Team Mode. Team captains (kids holding the devices) enter their team’s name and their players’ nicknames. Then they begin the game. This will be great for helping kids learn to work together or for those classrooms where devices are limited.
At the ISTE conference in San Antonio, Kahoot! unveiled a new mobile app for the game. What’s great about the app is that now both the questions and the answers will appear on the student screens. (Before, students had to look at the projected image in the classroom to see the question and then answer it on their own devices.) It also includes Challenges that can be issued by the teacher or by students to each. You can preview the new app (available in both Android and iOS) by signing up to be a