The Biz Quiz

A little more than a year ago, I spotlighted the work of tutor2u: An Articulate Presenter presentation that integrated Quizmaker 1.0. Today I’m delighted to spotlight tutor2u again in what is our very first Quizmaker 2.0 spotlight.

Since November 2005, tutor2u has been featuring weekly Quizmaker-powered quizzes with this tagline: “Are you keeping up to date with developments in the business and economic world? Test yourself with our new weekly quiz on business and economics news.”

Not only have the folks at tutor2u done an excellent job in creating a simple and easily accessible archive of quizzes, but they’ve nicely integrated each Quizmaker quiz within their custom site navigation. They also offer a downloadable PDF version of each quiz (Quizmaker allows you to publish to Word, which can easily be converted to a PDF file with the right software).

“There’s nothing like a quiz to brighten a class lesson or engage a student whilst studying alone,” writes
Jim Riley, CEO of tutor2u. “And there are dozens of software applications out there that claim to make the quiz-making process easy for educators — we know, because we looked at nearly all of them. But when Quizmaker first came out, we knew quickly that we had found the right application to develop student tests for our busy Web site.“

“We wanted quizzes that looked great but which were also easy to create and which could be published in multiple formats,” Jim continues. “For example, whilst a Flash-based version of our quizzes is great for teachers who want to point students to our website, many teachers still prefer to distribute quizzes and tests in good old printed handout format. So Quizmaker’s ability to output to Word saves us loads of time. We’ll be making our quizzes available in SCORM-compliant zip format too, soon. More and more of our school and college customers are using learning management systems that require SCORM compliance — they will be delighted with our use of Quizmaker’s SCORM output.

“Increasingly, we’re also making use of Quizmaker’s ability to distribute QM project files. Four of our quiz authors are now licensed to create resources using Quizmaker installed on their computers. They work remotely from the tutor2u office; they create their quiz and simply send the QM project over to us once complete. They love the QM interface, and are beginning to experiment with many of the graded question options such as the use of hotspots, drag and drop, and word bank formats.

“We are publishing Quizmaker quizzes every week now — and they are quickly gaining a strong following. For example, our Biz Quiz allows students to test whether they are keeping up-to-date with UK business news. Similarly, Question Time is a popular weekly quiz on the British Political scene. Give them a try and see how you do.

“I’ll leave the last word to a teacher who emailed us about our Quizmaker quizzes this week:

‘My students love your site and really enjoy the business quizzes that we do each Saturday morning (or is that the sweets I give as a prize?). The quizzes get the girls’ brains working on stuff other than make-up and clothes.’

I’m pleased to see Quizmaker in action on the tutor2u Web site, and even more pleased to know that our software is helping to educate the children of Britain, along with millions of other individuals around the world.

Thanks, Jim, for sharing your story! Have a story about an Articulate product you’d like to share? Please let me know.