BookWidgets for Teachers Who Want to Give Better Feedback and Assessments
Kate Baker —
Get started with BookWidgets and learn how to create interactive lessons, assess student learning, and give personalized feedback—all with seamless LMS integration.
Think of BookWidgets as your digital teaching toolbox for the classroom. Just like carpenters or mechanics choose different tools for different jobs, teachers can select from 40 widget types and 36 question formats to build interactive learning activities.
To help you get started, this guide focuses on two versatile widgets—Quiz and Worksheet—that work well across subjects and support everything from quick checks to deeper learning. Whether you're checking understanding, guiding analysis, encouraging creativity, or supporting essential skills, BookWidgets gives you everything you need to engage students, assess learning, and provide personalized feedback.
Quick Navigation
- Create Your BookWidgets Account and First Activity
- How to Create Your First BookWidgets Activity in 4 Steps
- Connect BookWidgets to Your LMS
- Monitor Student Progress in Real Time with Live Widgets
- Review and Respond to Student Work in 5 Easy Steps
Create Your BookWidgets Account and First Activity
This interactive video quiz is built with BookWidgets and lets you experience an activity from a student’s perspective. You’ll walk through account setup, create your first activity, and get tips along the way. Your responses come straight to me—and I’ll reply just like you would with your own students. This is one example of how BookWidgets can support professional development and teacher training experiences.
How to Create Your First BookWidgets Activity in 4 Steps
If you completed the interactive video quiz above, you’ve already seen these in action. You can also review the steps by navigating through this tutorial for getting started.
Here’s a quick recap to reinforce your learning and help you build your first interactive lesson.
1. Choose Your Goal and Widget Type
Think about what you want students to learn or practice. Are you checking their understanding, introducing a concept, or reinforcing a skill? To keep things simple for your first activity, we recommend using either the Quiz or Worksheet widget.
These two widgets offer the same 36 question types and settings, but the difference is how students experience the activity:
- Quiz: Displays one question at a time. This can help students stay focused by limiting distractions and guiding them step by step through the activity.
- Worksheet: Shows all questions at once in a scrollable format. This gives students a full overview of the task and allows them to move through the activity in a way that suits their thinking process.
2. Add Your Content and Questions
With the Quiz or Worksheet widgets, you can:
- Insert text, images, audio, or video for a multimedia experience
- Use any of the 36 question types to match your subject area or learning goals
- Upload a PDF or Word doc and turn text into interactive questions
- Import content from other widgets to reuse and reinforce material
Need Ideas for what question-types to use? Check out this guide on how to create specific types of questions and this blog post, 15+ activities to master open-ended question types in BookWidgets for better student engagement.
3. Preview and Adjust
Use Preview mode to experience your widget as a student. Make sure everything flows clearly and looks good visually. Make adjustments to the settings in the General tab, and, when in Preview mode, change the visual design by accessing the Design menu.
4. Share with Students & Review Responses
After you’ve created an interactive lesson with BookWidgets, the next step is to assign it to your students. Students do not sign into BookWidgets to complete the activity: Copy the link, generate a QR code, or share through Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, or another connected learning management system to deliver the activity to students. When students complete the activity, their submissions will appear in your Reporting Dashboard for quick grading and feedback.
After you’ve made your first widget, it’s easy to keep building. Each new activity lets you engage students, monitor their progress, and provide meaningful feedback that drives continued learning.
Connect BookWidgets to Your LMS
Connecting BookWidgets to your learning management system (LMS) such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, Moodle, Its Learning, Brightspace, Blackboard and Schoology, makes it easy to assign interactive lessons, collect student responses, and give feedback—all in one place. You can then use Live Widgets to monitor student work in real time by clicking Follow in the top menu bar.
💡 Note: LTI integration requires a group or school license. Teachers with single-user or trial accounts can still share widgets using links or QR codes, or through Google Classroom and Teams.
🏫 Interested in LMS integration for your school or district?
Learn more about special pricing for schools and districts.✨ Want to upgrade your account?
View BookWidgets plans and pricing.
Below, you’ll find tutorials and walkthroughs for each supported platform.
Google Classroom
Connect your Google Classroom with BookWidgets to assign, monitor, and review interactive lessons—directly from your usual workflow.
Microsoft Teams
Use Microsoft Teams assignments to share BookWidgets and streamline grading and feedback.
Canvas
Build engaging assignments and track student performance inside Canvas. District and school administrators should refer to the Canvas admin tutorial to complete the set up process.
Moodle
Create interactive assignments and review submissions through Moodle. School and District Administrators will find this tutorial helpful for a step-by-step process for enabling the integration between Moodle and BookWidgets.
Its Learning
Assign and review student work easily using BookWidgets in Its Learning. District and School Administrators will need this tutorial for step-by-step instructions to set up the integration with Its Learning and BookWidgets.
Other Supported LMS Platforms
BookWidgets also integrates with:
| LMS | Teacher Tutorial | Admin Setup Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Blackboard | Blackboard for Teachers | Admin Setup |
| Schoology | Schoology for Teachers | Admin Setup |
| Brightspace | Brightspace (D2L) for Teachers | Admin Setup |
Monitor Student Progress in Real Time with Live Widgets
After your LMS integration is set up, you can use Live Widgets to follow student progress in real time—perfect for formative assessment and in-the-moment support.
To activate Live Widgets in your group or school license:
- Go to your account settings, connect your LMS (you may need to check in with your district IT admin), and select "Track Live Widgets".
- Share your activity through the LMS (refer to the specific tutorial above).
- Click Follow in the top menu and open the widget activity.
- Monitor student answers as they come in and provide timely guidance.
Review and Respond to Student Work in 5 Easy Steps
BookWidgets makes it easy to monitor progress, assess understanding, and provide meaningful feedback—all in one platform. These five steps will walk you through the essentials of reviewing student work and returning meaningful feedback.
You can also follow along in the Review Student Work tutorial or view this ready-to-stream webinar, Efficiently Review Student Work within the BookWidgets Reporting Dashboard, for a more in-depth look.
1. Open the Reporting Dashboard
Open the Reporting Dashboard to locate the class or recent submissions you want to review.
2. Review Student Responses
Switch between student submissions or specific questions. Use filters to group identical student responses and to hide correct answers (so you can focus on targeting where students need the most help). Refer to visual indicators to spot correct, incorrect, or unanswered questions.
For more information, check out this blog post, The Best Way Teachers Can Efficiently Review Digital Student Assignments.
3. Add Feedback and Adjust Scores
Annotate student answers and leave meaningful comments using text, audio, or correction labels to support student understanding and encourage reflection. Please note that audio feedback only works when BookWidgets is integrated with your learning management system. Fine-tune scores manually when auto-grading doesn’t fully capture student thinking or partial credit is warranted.
For strategies on feedback and standards alignment, check out this ready-to-stream webinar, Improving Student Engagement with ISTE-Aligned Digital Feedback in BookWidgets.
4. Configure the Student Feedback View
You can decide what students will see when recieving their feedback. You can choose to show total points, points per questions, correctness, and/or correct answers. You can also differentiate the feedback view for individual students.
5. Return and Reclaim Student Work
Send submissions back individually or in bulk. Students receive their scores and feedback instantly. You can also reclaim returned work from students.
Wrap Up
BookWidgets makes it easy to engage students, streamline assessment, and personalize feedback—all while integrating seamlessly with your favorite LMS. Whether you're creating digital quizzes, interactive games, or formative exit tickets, the platform helps you design activities that support every learner. With step-by-step tutorials, ready-to-watch webinars, and real classroom examples, you can confidently explore how BookWidgets supports student engagement, feedback, and effective digital teaching.
Want to learn even more about creating and assessing engaging lesson activities with BookWidgets?
✔️ Sign up for upcoming free webinars and view recordings on the BookWidgets Teacher Academy Page.
✔️ Learn more about our special, limited-time pricing for groups of teachers for purchasing BookWidgets now without having to wait for the next school year or budget cycle.
✔️ Follow BookWidgets on BlueSky and LinkedIn and join our teacher community on Facebook!
✔️ And, be sure to connect with me, too, on BlueSky, Facebook, and LinkedIn!
