Hi Everyone,
I wanted to share a blog post I recently did for Tech Tips for Teachers about the tool Flubaroo. Flubaroo is a tool that is used in conjunction with Google Forms that allows the teacher to create self-graded assessments and share the results with individual students instantly. This tool is seriously a game changer. There are a series of steps involved in order to create these assessments which might seem intimidating but I can promise you it's easy once you get the hang of it and I've never met a teacher who doesn't fall in love with the tool. The tool actually goes beyond just automatically grading quizzes, it also crunches all of the numbers for you so you can see how your class did as a whole and on an individual level. I used to spend my entire Sunday night grading papers and compiling data but with Flubaroo you can accomplish all of this in less than 2 minutes! I highly encourage everyone to check it out. My blog post walks you through the process step by step and includes a screen cast: http://techtipsforteachers.weebly.com/blog/self-graded-assessments-using-flubaroo
If you try it out, leave a post here and let us know how it goes!
Happy Teaching!
Becky Shiring
eslbecky3@gmail.com
Comments
Becky, Thanks for sharing your post about Flubaroo. I, for one, will be checking this out. I wonder if other members have been using this site for assessment. If so, please let us know how it's working for you.
I'm guessing Flubaroo is new to most of us, so once you've had a chance to check it out, let us know your thoughts. From what Becky says, this seems like a fabulous, time-saving (who among us doesn't need that?!) assessment tool.
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, Assessment CoP
Thanks for sharing Becky. Flubaroo sounds great and I will check it out.
I also wonder if we can use Flubaroo as we help our adult learners acquire digital literacy skills. One of the skills that adults need to learn is to fill out online forms and google forms is a great way to build that skill into any lesson or unit. An additional related skill that is important for education and training is the taking of online quizzes. I can easily imagine having one or more online forms in each of my units and then when we get to a unit that is focused on education or training, we could add a Flubaroo-enhanced quiz to practice the vocabulary and information/content points in the unit. It sounds like doing the online quiz with Flubaroo would be easy but also provide students with the opportunity to practice taking online quizzes. This would be especially helpful if the students could see their graded responses right away, including the correct answers. I'm looking forward to trying it out!
Kathy
Hello colleagues, Just today a colleague mentioned the importance of having the technology skills to feel confident with online assessments. So many jobs now require applicants to complete online tests of one kind or another before they are even considered for a job. Great idea to incorporate similar activities into our instruction through tools such as Google docs and Flubaroo, Kathy!
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, Assessment
I am a huge fan of the Google tools an work to promote their effective use with all educators I get the chance to support. Flubaroo is a great add in for the Google Sheets to help add a level of automation. It can certainly help teachers correct multiple choice type questions quickly so there is more time to address higher levels of thinking.
Once a teacher is comfortable with Forms, Sheets and Flubaroo, there is a whole world of power available in Forms and Sheets and other tools as well. I have wondered what the best way to support teacher learning of these skills? For many, they wish to see an example of 5 to get an idea of what is meant by "power available". Sadly, after offering demos, there are many reactions of, "Oh that is awesome but there is no way I could do that!" The reality is that, like anything, it really is not that difficult once you get familiar with how things are working. The question is, how do we build up that comfort level and the materials teachers need to adopt some very powerful options?
I am thinking that a YouTube series might be helpful, but then it is often difficult to get questions asked. Webinars tend to be horribly static, observational experiences which do not promote the "doing" that will help teachers get comfortable. Perhaps online weekly digital meetings with an instructor for Q&A while videos help offer support the rest of the week? I would love to hear suggestions of how teachers might be best supported with such a huge range of tools and combinations (even just in Google's realm).
Hi Ed and all, Having YouTube videos demonstrating certain features would be extremely helpful. That way teachers can access them at any time. Figuring out a useful way to address questions, is a bit more challenging. You could invite questions and respond to them as time allows, or perhaps make a chat line available -- like having "office hours" at a specific time each week-??
What are some other options?
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, Assessment CoP
Hi Susan, Ed and everyone,
I really like the suggestions you have made - having videos available, and holding 'office hours' where people can ask questions. Another thought is to take advantage of step by step instructions in Help (if they are helpful!), so that there is also a text version of instructions available. Maybe they can be lifted and put into a super easy format and be posted back on google so people can access them. What are other people's ideas for getting teachers comfortable with these tools?
As we continue to explore digital ways to support our largely part-time people who are flung all over the country, a thought just came up. Has LINCS or any organization attached to it, ever thought about hosting a LINCS retreat? Think about this, we have more than enough presenters in these discussions to keep us all soaking up tons of information if we had a weekend retreat somewhere. What would it cost LINCS, other than the actual space rental and if they wanted to help those very remote from whatever site with travel that would probably be much appreciated by the field. Effectively, we have almost everything other than place and food already here in our ranks.
A face to face designed as hands on workshops where people get to work on the many ideas (that can all be staged, introduced, and prepped here on LINCS by the way). It would be such a wonderful experience to not only meet everyone here, but to work with everyone for extended hours actually doing things and creating things together! I am sure that no matter when the official day would end at this kind of event, people would be maximizing their time together well into the very late evening hours because these opportunities do not come often.
What do you think? If you like the idea, maybe if we make some noise in the forums (perhaps a new thread that crosses all discussion groups might be best) and informally flesh out what we could/would do at such an event, those that hold the purse strings nationally can see how much bang for their buck such a meeting could produce. I think it would be one of the most educationally rewarding experiences (and cheapest to produce) that one could support. Thoughts?