Common Core Quest

The app is part of the enormous and largely free resource that is OpenEd.io. It is has a clean and crisp appearance and does not have any lag issues with too much delay between selecting a section and obtaining a set of questions. These questions can be either set by the app then the completes the subsequent “quests”. These can also be set and assigned by the class teacher. There are resources below each section of questions for the student to review before and after in order to help with knowledge acquisition. This is very helpful in a flipped or blended classroom as the teacher may set this as a homework to be completed by the student outside of the classroom environment. The app marks the assessment and lets the student know the results immediately. Coming soon is the function of the student seeing the results in each classroom. The student cannot share their score or print or save to another area form within this app. The class teacher is able to see the scores of all of those students in their virtual classrooms.

The user can sign up with their Facebook account if they wish. This may have issues for under 13 year olds and that option may be blocked by your schools web filter. This gives the app access to the public profile and email address of the student’s Facebook account. The user can also simply sign up by using an email address.

The differentiation of the content is excellent, but there is no differentiation on the visuals. This may prove difficult for K – 3 or special education students. There is no access to any help within the app. A link to the OpenEd.io website for help would a great idea. The Math and ELA is pedagogically sound. For progression the user can change their own level by altering the year stage they are in. All of the video resources are via YouTube and The Khan Academy plus other resources so schools must make sure they can access these through any filtering that they may have in place. The questions are numbered in relation to the common core standards so may be confusing for younger users and special education students. It will be very quiet in the classroom as there are no sounds used at all.

Teachers can add resources such as games assessments, videos of their own via the OpenEd.io website and make them available to their students by the signing in to their classes via shared code or URL, email invitation or created directly for them. When a student joins a classroom they can see assigned assessments and their grade for that assessment. They have the option to leave the classroom at any time.

Overall this app integrates seamlessly with the OpenEd.io website. This is an invaluable app for those institutions already using the very established website at OpenEd.io. Even if your institution is not using OpenEd.io this app, used as a stand-alone, is an invaluable aide to learning and is thoroughly recommended as a part of balanced learning experience.

You can download Common Core Quest on your iOS devices from the Apple App Store.