GeoGebra, a free mathematics modeling tool, seems to be continuously improving and in the process becoming more and more popular with teachers. Thanks to Guillermo at Math and Multimedia, last weekend I learned about GeoGebra’s exam mode.

GeoGebra’s exam mode allows you to specify which GeoGebra tools can and cannot be used during an exam. Exam mode runs in full screen so that students cannot access other browser tabs while using GeoGebra during an exam. If a student does exit the full screen the top of the screen turns to make it easy for a teacher to spot when a student has exited full screen mode.  GeoGebra keeps a log of when students start using exam mode, when the exit full screen, and when the re-enter exam mode.

Applications for Education
GeoGebra offers an extensive set of suggestions and guidelines for using exam mode. One of the suggestions that stood out to me was the idea of coming up with an “emergency protocol” with your students in case they accidentally leave exam mode or their computers freeze.