The Spring Testing season is almost here. You know once it hits April in Georgia, testing is on. #crunchtime
Here are some sites to maximize your time and get your students ready for their various end of course (EOC) and end of grade (EOG) assessments. If you are in Georgia, that means the Georgia Milestones. If you are checking out this list before February, you can still use most of these applications to power your classroom curriculum and save boatloads of time. Some of these applications are adaptive and provide useful information that you can use to power your instruction. You can easily see where your students are struggling and take corrective measures.
USATESTPREP
USATESTPREP is a testing engine. They have all sorts of practice tests on this site. This is a great site to use throughout the year to monitor your students’ mastery of the standards. In addition, you can use this site to keep the content fresh in the minds of your students at various intervals, so that the students do not forget concepts learned at the beginning of the school year.
Edulastic
Edulastic has compiled some of the released tests that the state has published and they have it in their database. That means that you can just assign the students the practice tests online. This will save gallons of ink and time. See my review of Edulastic here.
Georgia Testpad
Georgia ended GOFAR, sort of. They are now using a testing platform called Testpad. It feels like GOFAR. And yes, it is just as slow as GOFAR. I think the publisher should create a better package than the one they currently offer. The site is really too slow to be fully beneficial. It is the same as GOFAR, if you are in Georgia. If you are in another state, they probably have the same product under a different name. Did I mention that this site is slow? It would be awesome if Georgia could bring back Georgia OAS, that site was much better… and faster.
Prepdog.org
Prepdog has practice test questions on their site. The student results cannot be saved, and there is no backend for individual teachers. That is a huge bummer. Apparently, their business model was unsustainable, so they are practically in maintenance mode at this time.
Lumos learning
Lumos learning provides test preparation materials that align with national Common Core Standards. In addition, they have a section that is dedicated to the Georgia Milestones. Test drive the free questions, that they have available. Maybe that is exactly what you are looking for to energize your instruction.
Splash Learn
Students learn and practice their math skills by playing educational math games (K-5). Teachers and parents may create free accounts to manage the accounts of their students. Check out SplashLearn.
Prodigygame
I guess witchcraft is the in-thing. Just like the spell that Minecraft has cast over millions of minds, Prodigy is doing the same thing, but their main focus is to get students to learn basic math skills. It is one of the very few educational sites that students actually want to use. I think it is one of those sites where you encourage your students to use it and you hope that they use it when they have free time. You know that the average student is not going to go home and use that other site without your prodding, but they may use Prodigy.
IXL Learning
IXL Learning is really popular. It is used in classrooms the world over. They provide a useful dashboard to keep track of your students’ progress. Not only can you use their resources to prep for the Milestones, but you can also use it year-round in your classroom. It is not cheap. If you purchase their entire curriculum for all content areas k-12, you’re looking at close to $1000 per year. Lookout Education Galaxy, IXL bought ABCYA. See my review of IXL Math here.
Mobymax
MobyMax is very similar to IXL learning. The jury is out as to which is a better solution. I have used MobyMax in the past and I really liked it. It is a good solution to keep track of your students’ learning as you go through the classroom curriculum. Mobymax also adapts to your students’ learning and creates a unique learning path based on the needs of your students. In addition, you can see how your class is doing compared to others using the platform. See my review of MobyMax here.
GoFormative
You can use GoFormative to share assessments that you created with other teachers. Also, if you find good released tests, as I have on this page, you can upload the documents here and share them with your students. One of the cool features of this site is that you can see what your students are doing in real-time. So if you have a key standard or concept that you want to make sure that your students understand, you can assign that task and help your students in realtime.
SeeSaw.me
This is a great site. It is like Pinterest on steroids for the classroom. To prepare for assessments, the teacher can upload, or reuse content that is already on the site and assign it to students. You can see your students work in real-time. So if there’s a particular skill that you want to assess your students on, you can simply assign that to them and see how they are doing.
Iknowit.com
Get your students feeling confident in math and it will reap dividends all across the curriculum. I know it will help your students master the mathematics standards. You can try it free for 60 days. See my review of Iknowit.com here.
