What is it?

Choose-It Maker is package which you can use to make simple activities for use online, or download onto an iPad or other tablet. Essentially it is a flexible template used to make exercises based on choice, within which there are a number of options. It is designed to be highly flexible in use, so pupils can use a mouse, touch-screen, switches or eye-gaze to work with them.

You select the content you want to use, then work through a set of steps to create an activity. For instance, if you were working on initial letter sounds you might make a set that matched pictures with sounds. On the first slide you could pose the question, “Which one begins with ‘c’?” then have an image of a cat or a dog to choose from. The next might be for the letter ‘d’, then ‘e,’ and so on.

Complexity and challenge is achieved in a number of ways. The question can be posed as text, audio or image, or all three. Similarly the choices can be offered in all three ways. You can also vary the number of choices with up to six options on a screen. In this way questions can be asked in a variety of ways, and progression can be built in. A scoring system lets you keep track of how your pupils are doing. There are also optional rewards, with short animations and music.

There are a number of ‘Ready Mades’ available which can be installed or used online. These include literacy, numeracy and science multiple choice sets with between 20-40 activities in each topic. These will work for pupils working up to early years levels, on topics such as the most common words and number bonds to ten. They are a good way to get started.

Who is it for?

This software was originally designed for pupils with more challenging and complex SEND, thought of as working at ‘P Levels.’ However, as they are essentially a blank template they could be adapted for any on-screen, multiple choice, activity, using text, images and/or sounds. At the end of each activity pupils can print a certificate, so a record is created of how they got on.

How do I use it?

With the ‘Ready-Mades’ it is a matter of selecting a subject area – numeracy, literacy, or science – then finding a suitable topic. Other options include whether to have sound or not, whether to use rewards, and the type of access. This latter includes eye-gaze, and one or two switch scanning. Otherwise learners just use a mouse or touch screen.

If you make your own you give your set a title, then follow through the workflow to make as many slides as you want, each time posing a question and providing answers, one of which you mark as correct. In operation these can be jumbled on the screen so each time it is used answers are in a different place.

What else is there?

You can do very similar things with presentation software, such as PowerPoint or Smart Notebook, however, this could be quite time consuming and fiddly, using functions such as hyperlinks, and turning off the automatic progression of slides. With Choose-It Maker all this is built-in already.

Then there are online resources such as Kahoots, which will create quizzes that can be shared with learners for them to answer on their own machines, however, these are usually done as group activities rather than as standalone ones.

With the built in rewards and recording Choose-It Maker is worth the investment, offering simplicity, creativity, and time saving.