If there’s one thing I’m most thankful to my parents for, it’s the way they supported me so wholeheartedly throughout my education. Their enthusiasm for learning meant that I too made the most of my school years, and while I did well, I enjoyed it a great deal too.
My Mom and Dad were both there for me when I did my homework assignments, not looking over my shoulder but always helping me with answers when I asked, and looking things up with me when they weren’t sure themselves. They weren’t bookworms either; we went on outings, scoured the libraries and watched educational television shows as a way of making learning engaging. It was never a chore.
With all the technology, computer and software we’ve got today, it’s a wonder that not all parents want to engage their children in such diverse ways of learning. After all, children often have short attention spans and variety is essential. Now that I have children myself I’m keen to make the most of the Internet in helping them learn, and I’ve come across some fantastic educational websites over the past few years.
I’m going to concentrate on one website in particular, called ProProfs. This site’s free features can be used to bridge the gap between teacher and pupil, and create quizzes ideal for self-checking your own abilities. They’re not only perfect for education, but for entertainment purposes and business marketing surveys too.
Quiz Examples:
If you’re unfamiliar with online educational quizzes and just how useful they can be, then here are a few examples…
DIY Quizzes
There may be ready-made quizzes to try out on ProProfs, but the point is to create your own so that it’s 100% relevant to what you or your child is learning. Choose a name and description for your quiz, before coming up with questions and inputting them into the site. This site is very simple, and is designed for children to be able to use, so you should find it simple enough to create your own quiz.
Images and videos are a great feature of ProProfs too, and will keep a child’s attention…
ProProfs allows you to choose your own grading algorithm for each quiz, test or survey. That might be using the usual A+, A, A-, B, C, D etc., words such as excellent’ and fair’ or a simple pass or fail. It’s entirely up to you which you use, but don’t forget to give useful feedback.
For each grade you will need to specify the percentage needed to attain it. For example, you may choose to award an A+ if the student gets 95% and over correct, an A for 90%+ and an A-for 85%+ etc. A nice added touch from ProProfs is the certificate feature, where you can award the student with a certificate of their grade and your digital signature:
Evaluation of Results
The ProProfs website also allows you to assess the student’s results, in order to:
- Find where the weak-points are, with respect to easy and hard questions and trends.
- Find which students are better in which areas, and develop a revision strategy from that.
This feature is comprised of two sections:
1. Reports’ – lists the names of the student(s) along with their details, score and certificate. This is particularly useful for tests taken online, and the reports can be downloaded onto your hard drive:
2. Analytics’ – this is the section that creates graphs and charts in order to visualize the results as a group, or across each subject:
Have you tried out online quizzes as a way of testing and teaching students? We’d love to hear your opinions and experiences, please leave a comment below!
This is a guest post by Jessy Troy, a new mom who loves collecting DIY gadgets.
