Educational Survey Websites

While going through these websites I noticed that many of them were beneficial for teachers. Two of the ten websites were unavailable when I was trying to access them so I was unable to see what their sites looked like and how they worked.
The first site, Rubistar, is a free website for creating rubrics. This site is useful for teachers who use rubrics. While looking at this site I noticed that this is not a site that I would have any use for. Being a preschool teacher, we do not create rubrics or assess our students in this manor. The website is specifically for rubrics only and does not offer any other program or services.

Next was surveymonkey, with this site you can create your own surveys. It is free for basic use (membership) which offers you a limited use of their products. If you decide that you need to use more surveys in a given year then you would have to upgrade. With an upgrade you will look at spending 19.95 a month or an annual rate of 200.00 for unlimited use. If you want unlimited use of all their services then you have to do a yearly subscription. I can not see  a teacher sending out that many surveys within a year to where they need to upgrade from the free basic plan. Teachers could use this site to create surveys for parent info or to find out more information about the family or what they expect their children to be learning in that given year. This site was very easy to navigate, templates are made for you or you can create them on your own. It seems to be very convenient. It also offers a range of security too. They have firewall, intrusion detection systems and a few other offers too.

Hotpotatoes is a free website. It offers only six applications which include quizes, jumble sentences, crosswords and a few other things. The only catch is that you have to download the free apps and you can not preview the apps or what they offer until you download them. Me personally I prefer to see what I am going to download before I download it. The website is not an extensive and there are no examples. It is very simple.

quizstar4teachers is free and has availability for teachers and for students. I thought it was interesting that a teacher can create and share quizes with other teachers as well has have their students take the quizes online. You do have to register and login in order to view the available quizes that are posted. From what I can tell this is a very easy to navigate site. Teachers can create their quizes, invite their students to their page, the students take the quiz and then the teacher can view the results of the individual students or the class as a whole.

snappoll was a very simple website. It did not catch my attention at all. Once you click on the site you start creating your poll. I did not see any information on their site about security or how and what you can do with their site. It is free but not an appealing website.

quizbox seemed to me like the online quizzes and assessments you would take and then post on facebook. This site had personality tests and IQ tests. It seemed more for a personal entertainment factor then it did for educational purposes. You can create your own quizzes as well. Like some of the other sites it is free for basic use and if you want more offers and products to use you will have to pay 14.95 a month.

teach-nology is a free website offering worksheets. Personally I hate worksheets and do not see them as beneficial for students as hands on work. They have a large variety of printables for teachers but it comes with a price. You will pay 29.99-49.99 depending on the membership you select.

easytestmaker helps teachers to format their tests for students. your choice ranges from a free membership to 24.95. There really was not much to the website and no way to preview what they offer. I find it hard to sign up for a website when you can not take a tour and see what they have to offer you.


Yourfreepoll and my gradebook were the two sites that I was unable to access.

Blogging as an Educational Tool

Blogging as an educational tool can be great. For someone like myself I teach preschool students, blogging is not an option for these children but it is for their parents. When it comes to teaching young children I have noticed a large decline in parent involvement. Many of my parents do not even know what their children are capable of nor do they know what their children are doing throughout their day in preschool. Blogging is a way for parents to become more informed about their children and see what they are doing in preschool. When teachers create a blogging site for their classroom they are giving the parents an opportunity to read what the kids are doing and then be able to ask questions and make comments on the posts. As much as this in not a personal parent involvement route it still makes a pathway for the parents to open communication with their children while at home.

Web 2.0

Before I read the information about Web 2.0 I was under the impression that this was something that would be very new to me. Unfortunately I was wrong, web 2.0 is something that I use on a daily basis myself. Whether it be on facebook or uploading pictures for my friends and family to see, I was unaware that this was considered web 2.0.
I can see some pros and cons when it comes to web 2.0. My place of employment currently uses snapfish to allow parents the opportunity to see what the children are working on in and out of the classroom (field trips). We have had positive feedback in regards to this site. This is one way to help connect the parents with what their children are doing in the classroom which in turn can give them more communicating options. Most of the time the parents will ask their children what they did and the usual response is "nothing". This gives them the opportunity to open the door of communication and say "I saw that you did....today". Using these sites to connect parents gives them the chance to help the children recall and describe what they actually did.

blogging sites for parents and teachers is another way for communication. It helps the parents find answers and ask questions about the daily routines and what their children are working on. This is another pro when it comes to web 2.0.

One thing that I see as a con is the lack of personal attention. It is much easier to write a blog, send an email or post some pictures online but in the end we miss that face to face conversation. The personal communication that some people really enjoy and need. Another con that I see is with my ESL students. Many of their parents need to have visuals and explanation of those visuals. This is not always something that is easy to do over the internet. I have many parents that have only been in the country for the last year to three years and have a difficult time with some of these sites. These are my parents that are much better with a face to face personal meeting then they are blogging or communicating through the internet.