Friday, January 31, 2014

CRAZY JANUARY

What unusual weather we are having this January! Due to much snow and very cold conditions we have be closed 4 days for bad weather. Of course, these conditions have messed up everyone's schedule including the library. In the days we have had school the 8th grade Social Studies students have researched people and groups for a Political Spectrum project. Using print and online sources groups of students have investigated anarchist, liberal, conservative, moderate, and reactionary points of view. Just this past week 8th grade ELA classes have worked on an analyzing advertisements. Tucked in between all grades have checked out books for book reports and many students have taken quizzes at our new online book report website, ReadNQuiz.

Also this past week grade level Spelling Bees were conducted in the IMC to determine 2 finalists per grade to compete next Thursday in the District Spelling Bee. Congratulations to our finalists and thank you to all who participated.


Friday, January 10, 2014

ReadnQuiz

ReadnQuiz is our new online computerized book report program that is replacing Accelerated Reader. I have now introduced RQ to all the ELA classes. RQ is accessed by the link on the Lakeview library webpage. If anyone has difficulty logging in, please let me know and the problem will be fixed. Like Accelerated Reader, RQ presents 10 questions about each book with 4 possible answers. Students select the best answer based on what they remember about the book. As with AR, I highly recommend that students take their RQ quiz as soon after they finishing reading the book as possible. Teachers have requested that all RQ quizzes for book reports be taken at school and the supervising teacher sign the score page printout. At the end of the quiz the score page can be printed using Control-P. If the quiz is for points to earn prizes, no printout needs to be made.

I will continue the prize rewards just as I did for AR. Both AR and RQ points will be included in a student's total so no one loses anything in the transfer to the new program. Point totals are taken at mid-term and end-of-quarter. Students who have earned 25 points or multiples of 25 points will receive a coupon for prizes that can be redeemed with me.

Other similarities with AR include:
Quizzes can be taken only once (unless a teacher allows more tries).
Once you start answering questions, you cannot go back.
You must login to take a quiz.
You can check your record in the My Stuff section when logged in.
You may always ask for words in the quiz to be defined, for answers or questions to be        rephrased, or for the quiz to be read aloud to improve your quiz result.
The red running book sticker will mark books that have RQ quizzes. (Please note that during    this transition period, students should not rely only on the stickers. Please check each book in  RQ if it is for a book report.)

Differences include:
A two-question survey about your feelings for the book before you start the quiz.
The Find a Book section to locate which books have quizzes available.
Quizzes written by teachers and librarians across the country are added daily.
Optional survey for each question to help the designers make the quiz better.
Many of our new books have RQ quizzes which do not have AR quizzes.
Quizzes reflect a more overview, comprehensive test of the book.