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Quia.com

Module by: Jennifer Lester. E-mail the author

Summary: This Tech Expert Module gives a brief overview of how Quia.com can be used by teachers to integrate technology based activities or assessments into the four walls of the classroom. There is also a decscription of how to navigate the site, how to register, and examples of what other teachers have created using Quia.com. Advantages and disadvantages are also listed.

Overview

This website allows teachers to create online lessons, practice games for their students, and make quizzes and tests for students to take. Teachers in elementary, middle, and high school can use this website to create math lessons for their students. It is very user friendly and makes incorporating technology into math an easy task. Quia is perfect for using interactive activities to review concepts, allows students to log on from their home to do homework assignments online and then gives their results to the teacher, it allows the classroom to go beyond the walls of the school, and it also lends itself to parental involvement. The games on Quia are designed to facilitate all learning styles and teachers can share their unique lessons and activities to teachers across America. Quia is actually short for Quintessential Instructional Archive, and provides a vast amount of tools for a teacher to implement in her classroom. Teachers can easily access templates for creating online activities, including flash cards, word searches, concentration, challenge board, and an interactive version of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game they call Rags to Riches. Quia also gives teachers online testing tools that allows them to create quizzes, grade them with computer assistance, and receive detailed reports on their students’ performances. In addition to creating your own activities and quizzes, teachers have access to over 3 million online activities and quizzes in various subjects, which have been created by teachers from around the world.

How to Get Started With Quia.com

Quia.com is very user friendly and in order to register and become a member, one must subscribe for a free thirty day trial and then pay for membership. But, keep in mind that most public schools preregister for membership, and therefore most teachers already have unlimited access and can create their own account for free. Once a registered member, members can navigate the website easily by using the tabs located on the left side of the screen. They are labeled as follows:

  1. My Profile: This is your home on Quia.com. It displays your information about you as well as your links to your posted and accessible materials.
  2. Classes: Provides easy access to your classroom rosters, your personal settings, Web pages, and gradebooks.
  3. Activities, Quizzes, and Surveys: A place to create, edit, and manage your activities, quizzes, and surveys created with Quia.com.
  4. Question Bank: You can import, edit, label, and search your archive of quiz questions.
  5. Files: A folder where you can upload documents, pictures, and audio files that you can use on your classroom website as well as in interactive activities.
  6. Calendar: You can post assignments and upcoming due dates and any other need to know dates, so that your students and their parents can access them at home.
  7. Shared Activities: This tab consists of over 3 million activities that have been posted by other Quia teachers around the world that you can upload, edit, and even customize for your classroom.
  8. Find a Teacher: This search engine makes it easier to search for a specific teacher and his or her lesson that you want to access.
  9. Comments: A message board where users can communicate with the makers of Quia to address questions, concerns, or comments.
  10. About Quia: This serves as an online newsletter that tells Quia users of any updates or latest features that come to the website.

Classroom Examples

Example 1

Mrs. Shepard, a fourth grade teacher in York County Public Schools, used Quia to assess her students’ knowledge of a key VA SOL topic: Key individuals of the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Shepard created a five question quiz that has the students match the correct individual with their description. Students can access the Quia website on portable laptops in the classroom or in the computer lab; their results from the quiz would then be sent to the teacher’s gradebook on her Quia account. I think that this a great example as to how a teacher can test his or her student’s knowledge on any given topic in an efficient manner, and recording grades is made easier for the teacher.

http://www.quia.com/pop/270946.html?AP_rand=235673196

Example 2

Miss. Christine Capone, an elementary school teacher in New York, created fun, interactive games for students to play online in order to review concepts on place value. In order to differentiate her reviews, Miss. Capone created four different types of Java Games using Quia, which were a matching game, a word search, a set of online flash cards, and concentration. Each game challenges students to match each number written in standard form with its correct corresponding number written in expanded form. This is a great example of how Quia allows teachers to differentiate their activities, because students in this classroom can pick the game that best facilitates their own study habits.

http://www.quia.com/jp/279741.html

Example 3

Melanie Douglass, a middle school teacher in New York, used Quia to create a challenge board game to review integer properties with her class. Challenge board game templates model game shows like Jeopardy, and students can play alone, with another student, or the teacher can pull it up on a projector for a whole class review activity. Ms. Douglass used the Jeopardy format to create her integer review. This is an example of how Quia is not only for elementary school teachers, but is also just as easily implemented in middle and high school classrooms.

http://www.quia.com/cb/64603.html

Example 4

Mrs. Zubak, a fifth grade teacher in California, used Quia to create a Rags to Riches game in order to help her students study for their upcoming science test on the plant structures and their functions. The Rags to Riches template is a game modeled after the popular television game show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and in order to win each set amount of money, the students must correctly answer a multiple choice question. This is a fun and easy way for teachers to review concepts with their students that is actually in the same format as their upcoming test. It also helps familiarize students with the standard format for tests, so that they will be comfortable taking multiple choice tests.

http://www.quia.com/rr/283770.html

Assessing Quia.com for the Classroom

Quia.com is very user friendly, and teachers can access the website by typing in Quia.com. Since most school systems have previously subscribed to the webpage, teachers just have to create an account for free. If any questions arise, there is a comment page as well as interactive online tutorials that show how to use the different resources in a step by step manner.

Pro’s

Quia activities are designed with different learning styles in mind to suit the needs of all your students. Quia allows users to create matching, concentration, and flashcard learning games that are easily accessible and user friendly. Viewers fill out the online form for each of their lesson’s content, choose the desired options and settings, and Quia creates the games for the teacher. Quia users can also search for games created by other users for a variety of subjects, including foreign languages, mathematics, science, history, and geography. It can be used in a number of different classes for repetition drills or online quizzes. Students will also benefit, because they will have the ability to practice and review subjects from home.

What is considered to be Quia’s best feature is the quiz sessions. Quia provides detailed statistical results of every student’s individual scores, which allows the teacher look over student performance rates and see trends that would otherwise be hard to see on a hand-graded quiz or test. Quia not only grades each student’s results, but also allows teachers to insert personalized feedback on each student’s quiz.

Con’s

One disadvantage to searching the content posted by other teachers is that since there are so many Quia users who post their games, the grade level and content varies greatly. So, it is important that teachers do not just use a game without extensively reviewing its content and subject matter before including it in their lesson plans or graded assessments. Another disadvantage to Quia is that is requires that all users have Java-capable browsers. This may cause a problem if a teacher posts an online homework or quiz online for students to take at home, because that would pose a problem for students who do not own a computer or do not have a Java-capable browser.

Considerations for Teachers

  1. Instead of writing questions on the board, or using cue cards, teachers can use a projector and conduct a fun classroom review session using Quia.
  2. Teachers are urged to view Quia’s downloadable tutorials in order to provide them with a basic understanding on how to use the Quia website as well as how to create the different exercises.
  3. Make sure that your school’s computer system has Java-capable browsers.

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