Teacher's Helper, Online
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2005
CliffsNotes may not cut it anymore. Questia (www.questia.com), the online library company, just gave teachers a tool that not only makes sure students finish their readings the night before—but also quizzes them before they get to class the next morning. The new program may put a permanent end to the blank stare.
The product, Questia Classroom, is a free add-on for schools that subscribe to Questia's online library.
Teachers can issue reading assignments, monitor whether the readings were completed, create study questions, or administer quizzes and grade them—all online. "Teachers can even tailor the readings to individual students depending on their reading level," says Troy Williams, Questia's CEO.
In addition, students can use the new program to automatically create footnotes within book reports from assigned readings in the Questia library. Teachers can then pull up the source material to make sure it was used accurately. Both teachers and students can access Questia Classroom with an assigned password from any computer connected to the Internet.
Launched in 1998, Questia's online library currently features 50,000 textbooks and 400,000 articles. About 250 schools in the United States and in 13 other countries are current subscribers. The company recently announced a free one-year subscription to introduce junior high and high school media specialists to the online collection.
