Will you Quizalize your Class Progress?

One of my most popular posts is this one, a comparison of Kahoot!, Socrative, and Quizizz, three great formative assessment tools. Each of them has a quizzing feature with some gaming elements that make learning fast-paced and fun. This week I tried Quizalize, another formative assessment tool that will give them some competition with some of their best features plus some extras. 

I learned of Quizalize when they followed me on Twitter (thanks, Quizalize, btw!). Intrigued, I headed to the site to check it out. It was very easy to make a new quiz. Click the + New Quiz button and you're on your way. Add multiple choice questions with a few features -- a range in timing from 5 to 60 seconds, images, math mode (for math symbols and equations), and an explanation of why the correct answer is correct. I used the math mode so I could insert superscripts. I did have to read their excellent guide on how to make that work, but I felt like I learned something in the process.

After I created the quiz, I created my classes. Each class gets a code. When students play, they type in their names and the code and they get funneled into your class without creating an account. I love that! Then you can assign the quiz to the class and leave it open. This is one of the features I like the best. I created the quiz and assigned it on Monday, but my students didn't know anything about it or use it until Tuesday. This makes Quizalize great for a station in a rotation that might span a couple of days or as a homework assignment. With a click of some buttons, you can assign and unassign quizzes.

Now the fun part. The quiz assigns more points for right answers that are selected fast. Students earn a score that they see after every question. 

There did not appear to be a leaderboard for students to see, but the teacher can see everyone's scores as the quiz is happening and at the end. As the students play, the teacher can see a bar showing their progress, color-coded to indicate how well it's going (blue is great, red is bad). I removed the names for these screenshots, but they are displayed in the tool.

When the quiz is over, students can review their answers, correct answers and how long it took them to answer. 

Teachers can see the kind of data you would expect, but in some very cool formats. First, a graphic shows how many students participated and, based on the student shading, how well they did (of the 17 that "played" in one of my classes, one is rated as needing help and 6 were just ok). 

Teachers can look at individual questions to see which were hardest and easiest and what answers were selected. Click on a student and the teacher can see the student's strengths and areas of need. This is awesome and really sets this tool apart from some of the others. The data analysis available on Quizalize (visualize student progress with quizzes?) is excellent.

A few other things are noteworthy features of Quizalize. First, quizzes can be easily shared and made public. In addition, there is a marketplace where teachers can search for (and sometimes buy) quizzes to use with their classes. Teachers can, as far as I can tell, actually set their price and sell their quizzes (an aside: let's just share our stuff for free). I shared my first quiz with a colleague so he could use it too. When he tried, there was a problem, but a quick live chat with the Quizalize wizards had it working by his next class. That's fantastic.

I tried three new tools this week and this one was my favorite. If you are looking for a fun tool for formative assessment that is easy to use and gives you great data on your students' progress, watch this video on Quizalize and then head over there to get started.