Okay, I admit it. I waited until the last minute to do this, and I really panicked. In my continued efforts to test out the power of Sakai, it was time to try quiz making. I had originally planned to re-create my quizzes in Sakai instead going the route of importing them from Blackboard. A fellow colleague was already experiencing that joy, and I wanted no part of it. Well, you can probably guess what happened. Yes, I forgot that I still needed to do that- re-create and left myself with about an hour to do it.
Sakai is not very intuitive at all, and can be downright frustrating. To begin, I clicked on Tests & Quizzes from the main menu. That was easy enough. I like that you don't have to go into a Control Panel to create a quiz. The picture below is what I was presented with.
The word optional is what caused all the confusion. To me, optional means I can create a quiz without "Choosing Existing Assessment Type." Turns out you can't. I typed in a title and hit Quick Create because I was in a hurry. Then things got confusing. My only options for creating quiz questions were:
General Instructions In order for the questions and answers to be correctly parsed, it's crucial to distinguish between questions. To accomplish this, each question must begin with one of the following: - The word 'Question', followed by a number, followed by the number of points to assign enclosed in parentheses, as in 'Question 23 (10 points)'.
- The word 'Question', followed by this same parenthetical indication of points, as in 'Question (10 points)'.
- The word 'Question', followed by a number, as in 'Question 1'. In this case, zero points will be assigned to that question.
- A number, followed by a period, followed by the same parenthetical indication of points to assign, as in '1. (10 points)'
- A number, followed by a period, in which case zero points will be assigned to that question.
The text of the question itself may be placed on this same line or below it, and should be followed by answers in the appropriate format for that question type. The parser will use this format to deduce the question type of the question. |
Multiple Choice Instructions: Each answer should begin with it's appropriate letter, in alphabetic order. The correct answer should be prefixed with an asterisk (*). Example:
1. (10 points)
Who was the first president of the United States? *a. Washington
b. Jefferson
c. Lincoln
d. Clinton |
Multiple Correct Answer Instructions: Each answer should begin with it's appropriate letter, in alphabetic order. The correct answer should be prefixed with an asterisk (*). Example:
2. (15 points)
Which of the writers below were American citizens at some point in their lives? *a. Bill Faulkner
b. Ginny Woolf
*c. Tom Eliot
|
Fill in the Blank Instructions: The correct answer should be prefixed with an asterisk (*). Example:
3. (5 points)
What color is a violet? ____ *Blue |
Short Essay Instructions: No answer should be provided for this question type. Example:
4. (18 points)
Explain the purpose of education. |
| True/False |
My first two questions I needed to add were fill in multiple blanks and the next two were matching. Neither of which I was able to create in this set-up. Yes, I was cursing Sakai, and myself for not doing this sooner. After fiddling around with it for a bit, I discovered that if I had indeed choosen an existing assessment type - Quiz, I would have been given more options for quiz questions. So I did that.
In actuality, Sakai ended up being easier to create a quiz. For instance, when creating matching questions, you get to put the the option and the answer in the same field. Sakai will then take your options and answers and mix them up for you. I hated that in Blackboard because it was always time consuming to have to match up your own question. You have to be careful not to follow the same pattern: A, C, B, or in my case, I gave a quiz and every answer for a matching question was C, A, B. The ordering was up to me, and unknowingly I created this same pattern.
Creating a fill in multiple blanks questions was easy enough. In Sakai you write the question with the answers in it, but you enclose the word that will appear as a blank in { }. In Blackboard you enclose a number in [ ]. Then you have to later add the answers. The Sakai way is faster.
I could find an option for giving the quiz a password. Still looking. I was able to set a time limit for the quiz, and I'm experimenting with releasing the feedback for the quiz after a set date. In this case, on Monday, after everyone has had a chance to take the quiz, students will be able to see the questions and the correct answers.
Students had two complaints about the quiz. The first was that they wanted to be able to skip a question and then be able to come back to it later. You can actually set up the quiz that way in Sakai, but I had not chosen that option. I will next time. And the second complaint was that on some questions, you couldn't read the whole question unless you could scroll sideways, and the only way to scroll sideways was to type in the box enough text that it forced the window over to the far right. That was strange.
Overall, creating a quiz in Sakai turned out to be a pretty good experience. It will be close to awesome if it had password protection. I still need to figure out how to grade the quizzes.
