Earthquake Quiz

I have just finishing designing my quiz, which I would have loved to use on the students last week as a summative assessment piece for earthquake week. Unfortunately they have already moved onto Volcanoes! Classmaster is an excellent site, it was extremely easy to use, and fast too - time is of the essence! There are multiple ways of choosing responses for your students, ranging from the standard multiple choice, through to essay style and punctuation. I must admit, I thought the quiz site would just allow for multiple choice, so I thought that this range offers much more in choice and framing of questions. You can actually achieve higher order thinking! I liked that fact that your account can also be upgraded to allow for extras like feedback given when answers are entered. Classmaster also allows for various settings when assigning a test, such as going back after answering a question, a pass mark percentage and even a personalised note when the student passes or fails.
We all know and love Google, so they have also included a Google search engine for when you are writing your tests - just to make sure you have the correct answer! You can also add images to your questions, which provide a visual clue for learners who like this form of stimulus.
Oliver's learning design theory is about combining tasks, resources and supports, to create learning among students (Australian Universities Teaching Committee, 2000). Creating an online quiz is an excellent way to scaffold learning, either as formative or summative assessment. In the context I would have used it in, my PowerPoint presentation would have provided the resources, the quiz was the task, and both myself and the web links were the support.
The only down side to the site that I could see on my first (but not last!) superficial visit, was that the instructions on the home page are not clear enough. For 'digital immigrants' this can lead to problems, as they would have no idea where to go to get to the next step. So for those of you who have yet to visit, read the instructions, then 'have a play' - you will find where you need to go!
Here is the URL to my quiz - see what score you can get!
Earthquake Quiz
References:
Australian Universities Teaching Committee. (2000). Learning Design - The Project. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from
www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/project/learn_design.htm