Creating Self-Graded Online Exams

I've had a few people ask me lately for tools to administer online exams.  There are a lot of tools out there, some free, many paid.  Here are my favorites:

I really love Quia.com, a paid testing software, that also allows students to play review games as well.  It gives you great reports, and is easy to create questions.  There is a volume discount if you get a group of teachers together.

Another online exam platform I have used is built into Canvas, a Learning Management System (LMS).  I was able to create online exams, and it graded all the multiple choice and fill in the blank answers for me, and also made it easy to grade the short answer/essay type questions.  However, this is just one part of the Canvas system, and you may not want to use a full LMS just for quizzes.  A bonus, is that using Canvas is free.

If you are not willing to pay for a system, or want to use an LMS just for the quiz/test feature, a great resource is Google Forms.  You can create a quiz using a form, and then use Flubaroo to grade it for you.  Below are instructions on how to great a Google form, and how to use the Flubaroo Add-on.

Research in Google Docs - Using the Research Tool and Easy Bib Add-on

Did you know that your students can research their topics without leaving their Google Doc, using the Research Toolbar?  And it will even add in citations in MLA, APA, or Chicago Style?  

Or, if you want a bibliography, students can cite their sources using the Easy Bib Add-on?Easy Bib is an amazing tool to help you write bibliographies.  The free Add-on integrates into your Google Docs.  Once you install the Easy Bib Add-on, you can use it in each of your documents to help you create a perfectly formatted bibliography in hundred's of citation styles.  It even indents the second line!

Here's a video on how to use the Easy Bib Add-on as well as how to use the Google Research Tool to find sources, insert them into your document, and cite the sources as footnotes.

Google Docs Speech Recognition Add-On

Many of us have students that have a hard time typing or writing, for a variety of reasons.  There is now an add-on in Google Docs, Speech Recognition, which allows students to "talk" to their computer, and their words become the text of the document. 

Students can speak in a wide variety of languages and dialects.  The add-on doesn't add in punctuation, so a student would need to go in and edit their document to polish it up.  However, this add-on is an amazing tool to help students get started with a writing assignment.

The video below shows you how to install and use this add-on.