Creating language exercises for the web
Overview. For this exercise we will use popular authoring software called Hot Potatoes, which was developed at the University of Victoria in Canada. (The first assignment will involve the development of exercises using Hot Potatoes.) The first step will be to download a copy of Hot Potatoes to your computer. Here is aguide
Links to an external site.
to that. We will use the authoring component to create a simple exercise. We will then instruct the software to publish the materials you have created. This will produce a webpage (an html file) and this is what the student will see and interact with. There are two modes here and sometimes people find it difficult to separate the two. In the first mode you are the author creating the exercise. The second mode is for the student to take the exercise. These two modes are associated with two files (for each exercise): the authoring file and interactive webpage file.
That may sound abstract, but everyone manages to work with the software.
Hot Potatoes
Hot Potatoes will produce web-based exercises and so typically you will produce the exercises on your computer and then upload the files to a website. In this session you will probably view the webpages while they are still on your computer, using a web browser such as Firefox (and selecting "Open File").
You can watch a demo
Links to an external site. on how to get started with Hot Potatoes.
You can start off by downloading Hot Potatoes. (You may see some notices about paying for an upgraded version. I don't think this is relevant anymore and in any case you do not need that version for our purposes.)
Open Hot Potatoes
1. Cloze exercise
1. Open JCloze.
2. Enter a title
3. Cut and paste some text from the web or type in your own text into the main textbox.
(Note: We could choose Auto-Gap and enter 10 to gap every 10th word. The program will then create the gaps automatically.)
4. In this session we will insert the gaps manually.
If you were creating an exercise for your students, you would have to think about what kind of words you wanted to gap: nouns, particular types of nouns, verbs, prepositions, phrasal verbs, etc.
5. Select a suitable word and click on the Gap button. Enter a clue and alternatives, i.e., possible correct answers for the gap.
6. Save your work from time to time.
7. Add 4 more gaps.
If you want to alter what you have written, click on the Show Words button.
Now what you have is the author/teacher’s file. What Hot Potatoes does is convert this file to a web (html) file which can be posted on the web for a student to work on interactively.
8. Click on the Export icon (it may be a graphic with a 6) or use F6.
9. You will be prompted for a filename and the html extension will be added.
(Do you know the difference between the two files you have produced?)
10. Once the file is saved, you will see a dialogue box asking what you want to do next. Select ‘view the exercise in my browser’
11. If possible, invite someone else to try to your exercise.
Any comments on the exercise?
That covers the basics. If you want to change the way the exercise is presented, you can change the default settings. When the author file is open, you can choose ‘Configure Output’ from the Options menu. Check through the different tabs to get an idea of what you can change. We will go through the basics and then you can return to particular exercises to customize them in different ways. For now, let’s look at the other exercise types.
2. Quiz
1. Click on JQuiz and select Beginner’s Mode.
You are presented with the options for a simple multiple choice test.
2. You can enter a title, a question, some possible answers, one or more answers marked as correct, and some feedback. If you need more alternative answers, you can click on the up-arrow below Q1. To move to the next question, click on the up arrow in the Q1 box.
3. Enter a couple of questions. Save your work.
4. When you have the questions, choose ‘Create Webpage’, save the html file, and look at the results using a web browser.
Notice the options for managing questions. And alternative formats for the quiz.
5. Invite someone else to try to your exercise.
Any comments on the quiz format?
3. Crossword creation
1. Open Jcross
2. Change the grid size to 8X8
3. Enter the words in the grid (the crossword answers)
4. Click on clues
5. Click on each word and enter a clue
6. Save the file
7. Create a webpage
Any comments on the crossword exercise format?
4. Jumbled Sentences
1. Open JMix
2. Enter a title.
3. In the main textbox on the left, write a sentence with one word on each line and any punctuation also on a separate line.
4. Save
5. Create a webpage
6. Try your exercise
Any comments on the exercise?
5. Matching Pairs
This is a sort of jumble exercise. You enter pairs such as
cow moo
dog bark
cat meow
If I were you I ’d go home
If he’d gone he would have seen it
If he is here I’ll see him now
1. Open JMatch
2. Enter some pairs
3. Save and view, as before.
Any comments on the exercise?
Now you can look at more options. For example, it is possible to add a reading text for some of the exercises. Go to Help and look at Adding a reading text; Adding a timer; Configuring the output; How to link a series of exercises; and anything else that looks interesting.
Final comment: These exercises are quite simple, but programs which appear to be more sophisticated and have graphics, video, etc. often consist of similar activities. It is possible to add graphics etc. to these exercises, but there will some restrictions on the layout etc.