Help with managing online student work submissions/feedback

Hello! I am an Algebra teacher and I am lucky enough to be working at a school implementing a 1:1 learning environment next year. Each fresman (1,800 total across our two buildings) will get a tablet PC when they arrive. I am having great fun (and spending endless hours) designing our learning environment and activities. I have one problem I haven't yet resolved, and I thought my pals here might have ideas!

I'd like to incorporate a daily "quiz" into the opening of class (I have 5 classes of 30+ students for 55 minutes each). In a non-computerized setting, these would be little half or quarter sheets of paper that I could grade and record (the whole class) in about 10 minutes. I would hand them back later that period (if I had done them during class) or the next day. That way, students could get feedback right away and revise the quiz for a higher score in the next day or so.

The tablet feature makes using computer devices for math like this a reality! I need to see students actually do the math to help find misunderstandings or mistakes. Since they can write a response to any problem, this will be great!

So...in this virtual environment...how to manage this? If I have them all write on their tablet to do their quiz (pre-scanned or saved for their access), then do they email it to me (I mark and email back)? Seems unmanageable! I could create a document library to which they submit, say in SharePoint, but how to I annotate and return to them individually without sending 150 separate emails a day? I thought they might be able to share a MS OneNote file with me (and keep everything in one notebook), but I think that would have me logging my credentials into 150 different notebooks. I know there must be a doable way! Any thoughts?

I really like the idea of having these little byte-sized (pun intended) grades and formative assessments to use in the class, but it's a daily event I need to figure out how to manage!

Thanks for your expert opinions!

Darcy Newell

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Permalink Reply by Pablo Benvenuto on October 1, 2011 at 1:12am

Hi Darcy,

My name is Pablo Benvenuto and have been developing with my partners a new Learning Management System, which is free, and it provides exactly what you are looking for, a way to quickly create a quiz, immediate feedback to the students and immediate reporting back to you. Please check it out at http://www.studybuddycampus.com and let me know what you think. I will be happy to help you navigate through it. pablo.benvenuto@studybuddycampus.com

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Permalink Reply by darcy newell on October 1, 2011 at 8:21am

Thanks, Pablo! That is a cool site! I'm going to use it for some other features! This quiz thing I'm describing, though, requires freehand/constructed response answers from kids. I would have to look at them by hand to give them feedback and do that in handwriting also. (I could use studybuddy to do some multiple choice and short answer stuff). I'm still searching for a way to manage this! (I'll collect a lot of great tools in this discussion, I can already tell!) THANK YOU!

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Permalink Reply by Julie Baird on October 1, 2011 at 9:47am

I'm in the same boat as you are but with foreign languages. Our freshmen will be getting their devices in November and I also want them to do some bell ringer activities and submit them to me. I'm following your replies to see if someone has a good solution on how to submit the student work.

I might have an answer for the handwriting part of your quizzes but it is a multi-step process. Since tablets have a touch interface, if there is a program that allows them to write on the tablet such as a whiteboard app, they could do their math problems there. Then they need another application or the option to take a screenshot of what they just did and send that picture to you. You then will need software that allows you to mark directly on their pictures just as you would one of their papers. Finally you need a quick way to send the picture back to the student. I can see this last part being a timely thing if you need to email each student their quiz back. I am also struggling with finding a solution for this aspect if I don't use Moodle or Google Docs. I like both of these but sometimes they meet my formatting needs. I don't think either one will work for you to see their handwriting.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Baird on October 1, 2011 at 10:05am

I thought that there has to be something on the Internet about collecting student work. I found the following websites that might be helpful.

From FreeTech4Teachers:http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/02/use-dropio-upload-widget-t...

This describe adding a drop.io widget to your blog or website.

Also from FreeTech4Teachers: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/09/7-ways-to-avoid-inbox-over... This page describes different services that work like a inbox.

If you have a dropbox account, the following link might be useful.

http://citrushightechnology.com/blog/?p=56

As far as I can tell, none of these address the issue of returning the work to the students. If I missed that, let me know.

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Permalink Reply by darcy newell on October 1, 2011 at 11:21am

Hi, Julie! Thanks for the reply! The handwriting part is easily managed by using MS One Note. Fortunately, our kids will have the full office suite installed on their tablets, so we have the use of this program. They can incorporate a "printout" of any file format (ie: if I have their quiz posted as a pdf or word doc) and then write on it. The program automatically saves all their notes in real time. I can write on their notebook, too (say, in a different color) and that is saved. Yes, it's the submission/return part that's tricky. Email gets overwhelming when I have 150 students a day! (besides our network manager would freak out with my email box being that full!) I'm experimenting with creating a document library in SharePoint and setting it so students have "contribute" privileges, but they can only see their OWN submissions. Then, since I have rights, the student and I could edit their quiz (so they can redo work if they'd like). This might work...students will still have to upload their file to the doc library, but they might get quick at that! I'm just not sure there isn't yet a better option out there! :-)

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Permalink Reply by Julie Baird on October 1, 2011 at 4:39pm

Darcy, MS One Note sounds like a good option. We won't have the MS suite on our tablets so that won't be an option for me. Since SharePoint is a Microsoft product, that won't be an option for me either but we are a Google school. I just know that Google changes some formatting options when it converts docs to its format and sometimes the formatting matters. Maybe I need to get past the formatting issues and just accept plain text.

If SharePoint allows the students to upload to your doc library and then gives them only rights to see their own work, it sounds like you have a solution. If it works like Google Docs, once the file is shared with someone and is in a Google docs format, both people can access it and edit it. Google Docs even has a history timeline so you can see if one of your cherubs changed something after you graded it. The problem is this only works if the file is converted to a Google docs format. I hope you have better luck with SharePoint and MS One Note.

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Permalink Reply by hartman.susan4 on October 1, 2011 at 7:02pm

Have you looked into the free (yeah) learning management system - Schoology. It is a great way to collect and return "papers" in addition to the quiz feature that will instantly grade simple quizzes like those you are describing. See if http://help.schoology.com/index.php/Instructor/Course_Test_Quiz will allow you to do what you are describing. I love this program -and so do the students. It is like Facebook - but for education. The kids can communicate with me and, in teacher-controlled degrees, with each other. They can take quizzes, easily access documents, links, photo albums, assignments, blog, create discussion groups, manage subscriptions, ...and it gives them a "dropbox" for each created assignment. I can't say enough about how this has helped with organization, documentation, and communication. If you have more questions about how I use this in the classroom (I use it with a 7/8 integrated technology class), let me know.