Hot Potatoes, Quia, & Classroom Wizard

Expectations

Product Overviews

Hot Potatoes
Key features
Pricing
Implementation
Bottom Line

Quia
Key features
Pricing
Implementation
Bottom Line

Classroom Wizard
Key features
Pricing
Implementation
Bottom Line

Summary
 

The Internet offers many products to meet the growing interest in assessment alternatives. At the K-12 level, as teachers become increasingly comfortable with their technology skills, their interest also grows in enhancing their teaching by incorporating online quizzing and creating a toolbox of supplemental educational activities such as crosswords and puzzles. Teachers who maintain their own academic websites are especially eager to incorporate these tools. The IT department that does not take a proactive role in evaluating and helping teachers make their selections may find itself faced with supporting a multitude of packages, ranging from free to extremely costly.

To assist teachers at the high school level in deciding which product(s) best meets their needs this report will examine and compare:

• Hot Potatoes, developed for foreign language instruction but widely used and available free of charge

• Quia, available on an annual subscription basis including a directory of activities in 50 subject areas

• Classroom Wizard, developed by Scantron to provide students immediate feedback using Palm devices

The choice of evaluating these three products was in response to interest expressed by teachers at my school.  Very expensive high-end testing alternatives exist such as Question Mark that focus on secured testing, however, this report is directed at solutions for the individual or small interested cadre of teachers.

This report will begin by examining the differing expectations and concerns of teachers, students and the supporting IT departments. Separate overviews for each alternative will include its key features, benefits and pricing. Their respective implementation requirements in terms of training, security and product scalability will be addressed. The report will conclude with a cross-product comparison to provide selection guidelines.