Technology Pursuit

Blending Technology Into the Language Arts Classroom

Tag: quizizz

New Updates at Quizizz!

Yesterday I compared Quizizz to other selected response systems.

And I found out thanks to Ankit Gupta (@ankit042) that a few days ago Quizizz added brand spanking new updates to Quizizz!

Here’s a rundown of them below:

Quizizz  Select Question Set

Jumble Order:  When my students tried out Quizizz before, I was disappointed to see the questions scrambled.  I had set up a “Finding the Main Points” quiz so that a few early questions would get them warmed up to more difficult later questions.  Then I realized they were all scrambled!  My students were flipping through their hard copy papers (with passages) with every question.  But now, I have the option to shut off the jumble order if I desire.

Show Leaderboard:  I love the competition that leaderboards bring on, but if it’s early on in a unit and students are still in the early learning stages, I may not want students to feel that competition yet.  That’s why I love the ability to shut this off.

Show Answers:  Most of the time I definitely want my students to see the answers at the end of a quiz.  I want them to know right away what they missed.  So often, it’s the ones I missed back in high school that I remember most today nearly 20 years later, and I think this “instant gratification” of seeing the answers helps feed this.  Of course, teachers can shut this off if they don’t want classes sharing answers with later sections.

Question Timer:  One issue I had with Kahoot (and Quizizz to an extent) was a time constraint.  Sometimes I like giving students more points for quick responses, especially for lower-level depths of knowledge.  But I’ve found that students often get in such a rush to get their answer in that they accidentally click the wrong one.  Now I can shut the question timer off on Quizizz, which eliminates the timing anxiety that encourages students to rush through a question.

Shut off Meme:  After students answer a question, a meme pops up to inform them of their success or miss.  Teachers may now choose to shut off the memes (I love them, but these can be distracting for lower elementary classes.)

If I could have one more update, it would be the ability to add a graphic/media to each question.  Currently you can add a graphic to serve as a background to the question text, but often I give students passages to read (or re-read).  I can also see social studies teachers wanting to use maps, math teachers inserting angles and shapes, and science teachers inserting images of cells or chemical equations.  For now, I create a hard copy handout with passages on it for my students.

I’m very psyched about these new updates from Quizizz!  More than ever, I highly encourage everyone to check these out!

 

 

Comparing Classroom Response Systems: Kahoot, Pear Deck, and Quizizz

**A new updated comparison of response systems can be found here.

 

UPDATE:  The day after I tried out Quizizz with my students, the good people at Quizizz updated the software to include brand new controls, including unlimited time and non-randomized questions.  Definitely some fantastic upgrades.  I also updated my table below to reflect these changes.

Kahoot and Pear Deck have been staples in my classroom teaching this year, but in the past few weeks, I’ve become acquainted with Quizizz, another classroom response system.  A few days ago I while we were reviewing, I wanted a response system, but one that didn’t emphasize answering the question quickly, as students tend do (and are rewarded for doing) with Kahoot.  Pear Deck would have worked, but we were also having a group competition, so I wanted something that also had a scoreboard.

Enter Quizizz.

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Quizizz is newer on scene than Kahoot, but it does have some bonuses.  For one, the time allotted for each question can be programmed to up to 5 minutes; while students are still rewarded for answering the question faster than others, extending the time helps ease student anxiety.  They don’t feel as rushed to answer the question.

The program is also very intuitive.  It takes only a few minutes to throw together a quiz for a class.  The system also delivers questions in random order to each student, so the quiz process contains less class interaction than Pear Deck and Kahoot have, resulting in a quieter environment.

I won’t give up Pear Deck or Kahoot.  All three have a use in the classroom depending on teacher/student needs.  Here’s how I see their sequence in my teaching:

Screen Shot 2014-10-14 at 7.55.30 AM

1) Pear Deck comes first, as it is really an interactive presentation system, not solely a response system.  I can deliver a few slides of material and then ask students to respond to a question.  Pear Deck also works well with new material because it does not use a public scoreboard.  Students see others’ responses, but all responses are anonymous in the “presentation” and “student” view.  (Teachers can view the “teacher” view on their mobile devices and see how students answered each question.)

2) Quizizz is a logical next step.  With longer times for questions and a quieter environment, students are able to better concentrate and work through new material at their own pace.  At the end of the quiz, they can see how they compared to other students on the public scoreboard.  Students could also use code names or student ID numbers to add more anonymity.

Quizizz is also better than Kahoot for higher depth of knowledge questions or questions with passages.  If you want students to take their time, this is the better format.

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3) Kahoot is fabulous for rapid recall questions.  As much as we should stress critical thinking, there are some facts students still need to know (multiplication, countries, presidents) or skills they should do quickly (looking up a number on the periodical table).  For a quick-paced review, Kahoot is your tool.

What I do want to emphasize more than anything is that these are all tools for formative assessment.  I use these to check the pulse of the class, to determine what needs more review and what they understand well.  When I give a summative assessment, I do not want my students to feel time constraints, either placed on them by the application or by the teacher/classmates on Pear Deck waiting for them to answer.

Check out the table below for a more detailed comparison:

1Student Selection Response comparison Google Docs

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