QUIZES, TEST, using CLASSMARKER.

I haven’t truly experience students saying “Our dog ate my homework Miss” but close “My baby sister ate or chewed my homework”. I have heard that said twice. I am not surprise that things happens.
After reading Makiko’s blog about classmarker I thought I must to check it up so I did.
http://www.classmarker.com/

After signing in, I played around a bit and explore the possibilities. I notice I was creating my quizzes in no time. I find it user friendly. I can think of many ways. It allow you to choose things like how many questions to display per page, are questions given in random order etc.
I like this idea to check your students understanding about a unit or can be use as formative assessments. You could design a test to suit student’s needs. The results could be used by the teacher to see which students need extra support and which students are competent with their math’s. This could also help the teacher buddy students into pairs or groups with a high achieving student and a lower achieving student in the same group, this way they could learn from their peers.

Advantages:
For Teachers/Learning Manager:
 I like the idea of storing your test/quizzes as well as going back to edit or add what ever you need.
 You can access it wherever there is an Internet.
 Save time and paperwork.
 Teachers can also hide the test after it has been taken so you can still see the results but your learners cannot.

For Students:
 Students will be able to access their quizzes test at home
 Great for a student who attends so many activities like sports.
 They can attend the test anywhere and finish it their own pace.
What do you think?
Cheers Mary-Ann

Image retrived December 2,2009, from:http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/images/homedog.gif&imgrefurl=http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/homedog.html&usg=__T01bxwYtR_IvXt2anYull_gb6os=&h=604&w=550&sz=21&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=S14GNk1h-Zz4lM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=123&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddog%2Beating%2Bhomework%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4RNWN_enAU326AU327%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

RSS. Get it while its hot!

How I stumbled with my RSS? (most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication" but sometimes "Rich Site Summary") You can laugh at me. But all I can say is.. I dont know how but I stumble on it while I was clicking away. I got it!!! I can't tell you exactly how.

My excuse is I must have been very tired and excited I want to read everyone’s blog and more!! Now to my heart content I can read a feed subscription, blogs anything I like. One day I want to subcribe or follow to the tropical plants blog.Im sure there is one if not gonna do just that(blog).
The good news is I do understand how it work now that’s the main thing (pwew).

I am pleased to say that:
You can get updates from this blog via RSS.
Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using a web-based service like Hotmail.

In general you need a RSS reader and must of them are free in my case, I use Google reader because I already have one. If you click on the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.

We all know that,there are so many information sources to keep up with on the internet.
Before RSS, you would have to visit each page individually to see if there was any new content. RSS works the other way round: you log in to your RSS reader and all the new stories are brought to you.You just tell your RSS reader the sites you’re interested in.

In class, as a teacher using RSS will be great tool save a lot of time searching and archiving information’s. Teachers can read students postings (unit of interest) each other’s postings, moderating students work via blogs. If the class is doing some unit that interest the student you can subscribe to the Web and skim read other postings. It can also be use as formative assessment on how students are interacting with peers, problem solving scenario to where an on how they get such information’s. I am sure you can think of more ideas. It’s limitless!!! I just think it make life easier for you as a teacher and I can just imagine students reading each others peers posting.

Cheers
Mary-Ann

BBC News retrieved on December1,2009.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3223484.stm#mysite