Hello and welcome back to Charlie’s Lessons for English teachers. Do you struggle with the amount of time that you spend marking your students’ homework or tests? If so then this blog post on how to set homework online is for you.
The vast majority of teachers at my school said that it takes them around 2-3 hours a week to assess homework, so you are not alone. But, I can cut this time down in half or more simply by using the websites that I’m about to show you. So, here are the six different ways that I save time correcting homework by setting it online.
Google Forms
The first way for us to assign homework online is Google Forms, which is accessible via any Google account.
Set up
- Once we are logged in, we can visit the Forms homepage and from the top left-hand corner underneath Start a new form and select Blank.
- We can now see an Untitled form to fill in. From the top banner, select Settings.
- Underneath Settings, we can now select Make this a quiz.
- Now that we are in the quiz function, select the Questions tab and we will find a list of blank questions.
- In the Untitled Question text box, we can fill in our question and in the Answer key area, we can place our answer and select how many points we wish to allocate per correct answer.
- We can then select Done and our Q&A is ready.
- We can preview our questions by selecting the eye-shaped button in the top right-hand of our screen.
- We can now select Send from the top right-hand corner to send our quiz via email, Twitter or Facebook.
- Once our students start to complete the form, we can view their answers in the Responses
Pros & cons
Google Forms is very easy to use, we can easily incorporate images and there are a variety of question types for our students. We can also import questions from other Google Forms that we have already made.
When our students’ responses are loaded in full, the full feedback is available in the form of colourful pie charts. We can also export the data to another spreadsheet and view the information as another chart. So, we can easily see where our students are going right or wrong.
Live Worksheets
The second option to set homework online that I want to talk through is Live Worksheets.
Set up
- From the homepage, we select Make interactive worksheets and then select Get Started.
- From here, we can Choose a File to upload a document that we would like to edit and then select Upload.
- In this example, I made a collocation activity with the options to Say or Tell. For the website to recognise the correct answer, all we have to do is select the worksheet and input our correct answers.
- Once we have input all of our correct answers, we can then Save the worksheet.
- All of our worksheets are available under our profile name, under My Worksheets in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
- We can add these to our Google Classroom, Teams or just copy a link to share with the students directly via the buttons above the worksheet.
- Now we can provide our students with an email address or a code so that they can fill in the answers.
- Once we receive an answer from a student we should receive a notification and we can start assessing.
Pros & cons
I’d say that the biggest strengths of Live Worksheets are that we can upload PDFs, JPEGs and PNGs. This means that we can take photos or scan copies of coursework, edit them, tell Live Worksheets what the correct answers are and share them instantly with our students.
However, one of the drawbacks is that what we receive from the students is not too dissimilar to what we receive in a normal class when the students have completed homework in their books. So, unlike Google Forms, we can’t visualize and assess the data as easily.
wizer.me
Option number three is wizer.me – a digital worksheet publication website where teachers can create, publish and search for worksheets.
Set up
- Select Join now from the top right-hand corner of our screen, pick I’m a Teacher and again we can connect our Google sign in, or Edmodo and Microsoft accounts.
- Select Create Worksheet and we are shown 18 different activity options.
- We create our homework and select Assign from the top banner to either share directly via Google Classroom or via a pin-secured link.
- We can also send automatic feedback to our students, or save the assessment for the classroom.
- Once a student has finished the worksheet they’ll pop up under Learners with their score.
Pros & cons
One thing that impressed me is the number of question types that are available with the free version of this tool. But, the feedback from the completed worksheets is quite limited and there’s a lot of functionality that is held back for Premium users.
Kahoot!
If we’re looking at ways to save time correcting homework and getting feedback from students’ understanding of the class, then we have to have a look at Kahoot!
Set up
- Click the homepage Sign Up
- Select Teacher.
- Select School, or what is the most appropriate option for us.
- Use our details to complete the process, or select the Google sign-up option.
- For an entirely new quiz, click on Create.
- Create a new Kahoot!, or select from one of the ready-made Kahoot!’s and select Assign.
- We can set the time and date of when we would like our students to complete the homework.
- We can also send our students a direct link, or add this to our Google Classroom.
- We can now analyse the results via individual students, a summary or by questions.
Pros & cons
The biggest strength of Kahoot has got to be its reports. The feedback that we get from these assignments is very helpful for planning our next classes. Plus, it is easy to identify where the students have gone wrong.
Quizizz
The fifth one I want to talk about is Quizizz. The process is very similar to Kahoot!
Set up
- Click the homepage Sign Up
- Select Teacher.
- Select School, or what is the most appropriate option for us.
- Use our details to complete the process, or select the Google sign-up option.
- We can now find or create a quiz we want to assign to our students.
- Once we select a quiz, we can then Assign it as homework and select the deadline.
- We can share the homework on Google classroom, share a link with our students, or we can ask the students to visit this website and enter a code.
- Once the students have finished completing their homework, we can load the reports and check individual students by individual questions. Or, we can see an overview of all the questions answered correctly and incorrectly.
Pros & cons
So like with Kahoot!, the reports with Quizizz are excellent. We can quickly identify exactly where the students have gone wrong. However, in my opinion, the insights that we get with Kahoot! are slightly better than we get with Quizizz.
In an earlier blog post, I compared the free versions of Kahoot! Vs Quizizz in more detail.
Blooket
Last but not least is Blooket.
For the full rundown on how to get set up on Blooket, check out my teacher tutorial post and head back here.
Now that we are all set up, select Host and select a Game Mode that’s going to let us assign homework.
The Game Modes that let us assign homework are:
- Tower Defense
- Cafe
- Factory
- Crazy Kingdom
- Or, Tower of Doom
Now, click on Assign HW. Again, we get to choose a deadline and share this link with our students. Once back on the Dashboard, we can check the student’s homework by selecting Homework from the left-hand side of our screen. Now we can simply select the homework that we’ve assigned to our students and we can now see the feedback on how the students are progressing.
Pros & cons
Blooket is a lot of fun as there are a lot of game modes for our students to play. But, the reports are lacking. So, when we set homework we do not get much of an insight as a free user on this platform.
Final thoughts
So, I’d place these six platforms into two separate groups. Firstly we have – Google Forms, Live Worksheets and Wiser – these are designed for teachers who would like to personalize the homework they give their students. Then we have – Kahoot!, Quizizz, and Blooket – these are more fun and more instantaneous when it comes to our feedback.
I would have loved to have known about these websites a long time ago as it would have saved me a lot of time. So, if you have any friends that are working in teaching and are going through the same thing then share this video with them.
You can tell me what you think in the comments below. Or, keep up to date with all of my latest blog posts by following me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.