This semester I am trying out a new (for me at least) website to host our daily starters and quizzes for the computer lab classes at our school. Say hello to Classmarker.com. I thought the site was pretty good when I signed up. But after some upgrades, I have to say the site is pretty excellent.
Once inside, you can set up classes with just a few mouse clicks (I use only one class and have input about 150 students into that class to keep things simple. More on that in a bit). You can add students one at a time, or type them into a box with First (comma) LAST. Classmarker will input up to 50 students at a time. You can allow the program to generate passwords, or you may assign every student the same password. I used the former option this semester, but if I had to do it again I would choose to assign everyone the same password simply for the ease of use.
The upgrades to the system allow you to create tests with any or all of the following question types: Multiple Choice (single answer), Multiple Choice (multiple answers), True/False, Essay, Free Text, and Punctuation. Once you input a question it is automatically added to your question bank.
We use Classmarker for our daily starters. We have 3 multiple choice questions each day for Monday through Thursday. On Friday, we randomlyl select 10 of the questions used to generate a quiz that is graded.
So far, I am loving this program. The biggest drawback I have at the moment is that I have not created categories for my tests. As a result, each test is listed on one page. Using one quiz each day means we have a LOT of tests. For our purposes, once the grades are recorded for the tests, I delete them. The questions are still available to generate other tests from them later.
Classmarker is free (with ads) or you can get a year’s subscription for $24.95 that will remove the ads and give you a little more versatility in the options menu.
Give it a try!