Two Options for Collecting Students' Questions to Appear on Review Games

Earlier this week I received the following email from a reader,

My desire is to create a database of questions in multiple choice, short answer and T/F . I guess a quiz, however I would like to "share" (like g docs) this database with my students so that they could add questions . What app or program would be best for this (open source)?

I had two suggestions to offer. First, Triventy is a free online quiz game platform that is similar in concept to platforms like Kahoot and Socrative. Triventy differentiates itself from the crowd by allowing you to accept question suggestions from students. You can see an overview of Triventy in this video that I published in January.

The other tool that I suggested was Quizlet. Quizlet is an online and mobile (free Android and iOS apps available) for creating and studying flashcards. All of the flashcards that you create on Quizlet can be made public. Your students can create and publish flashcards too. Then you can can create a folder within Quizlet in which you collect all of the flashcard sets your students have created. Once you've put those flashcards into a folder in your account you can create quiz games by using the Quizlet Live option.

These Tools Help Students Compare the Sizes of States & Countries

I'm in Scottsbluff, Nebraska this morning. On Friday I drove from Denver to Cheyenne to Scottsbluff. Making that drive reminds me that Maine is quite small in comparison to western states. While it's hard to replicate the experience, there are tools that help students see the size of states and countries relative to others. The following three tools are good for that purpose.

If It Were My Home is a neat site that provides comparisons of countries. If It Were My Home will show you a comparison of geographic size of your country with that of another of your choosing. Beyond the size comparison, If It Were My Home shows you comparisons of twelve health and economics statistics about life in different countries. To view the comparisons just select two countries from the lists and click compare.

Overlap Maps is a free service that can be used to quickly compare the size of countries, states, provinces, and some bodies of water. To create a visual comparison of two countries select one country from the "overlap this" menu and select one country from the "onto this" menu. The comparisons you make are displayed on a map. You can make comparisons from different categories. For example, you can overlap Lake Erie onto New Hampshire.

The True Size Of... is a free web tool that lets you quickly compare the size of two countries or two states within the United States. To compare two countries simply enter one into the search box then enter a second one into the search box. Both countries will be highlighted for you. You can then drag and drop one onto the other. The same can be done with states of the United States as is demonstrated in my screenshot above.