I’m not one to sing praises to many apps.  One, I’m not that big of a deal and two, I don’t use a ton of apps right now.  However, this one is an app that can help streamline and save an enormous amount of time for teachers.  It’s called QuickKey, and sing it praises I will!

Our district uses a reading series call Treasures from MacMillian/McGraw Hill.  It’s not a bad series, but like most all of them, there’s an enormous amount of “stuff” that we are asked to do, one of which is giving a weekly literacy assessment.  Well, those assessments are paper and pencil bubble tests, preparing our little test takers for another bubble tests they’ll take (a whole different post), but they are time consuming to grade.  Now, I have it easy with only 15 students, but still, I can expect to take at least 45 minutes to make sure they are done right.  My co-workers with 28 – 30 students, we’ll double that time at a minimum.

I downloaded the QuickKey app (https://www.quickkeyapp.com/) a while ago, but just hadn’t played with it much until last week.  I can’t remember who tweeted out this thought, but if we take one thing we’ve learned about or done during the chats and research it, use it, make it part of our classroom, that would be a great thing.  QuickKey is my thing right now.  So last week, I did my research, fumbled around the website (great tutorials and social media presence, @4_teachers), got my quiz loaded and ready to scan.  Friday, I showed my students the new form we’d use, how we’d use it, and what would happen next.

What happens next you might ask?  Great question!  For my part, I needed to enter my student names in, pass out their assigned I.D. numbers, and load in the correct answers.  Students use a score sheet downloaded for free from the QuickKey web site, and when they finish, they bring me their quiz.  I scan it with my iPod, and boom, we get their name popping up and their score.  Sweet! However, not only that, I can look at the quiz as a whole and do some item analysis with it, looking at the two questions almost everyone missed.  Was the problem part of our lessons, something left out, or a question problem?  I can adjust plans for the following week much more fluidly, and students have their scores within minutes. As far as I can tell, this is an Apple app for the time being, with an Android/Windows app on the horizen.

The front loading comes from entering names and entering quiz scoring guides.  After that, you have data within minutes, not hours!  Plus, I’ve just gained time in my work week that can be put to use somewhere else!

So, if you are dealing with quizzes that aren’t online or you are looking for a way to streamline this process to give you data more quickly and in an easily digestible format (makes it sound almost yummy), please check this app out!