CREATING INTERACTIVE EXERCISES USING THE PROGRAM HOT POTATOES

Subject

Creating interactive exercises for different school subjects using the program Hot Potatoes.

My name is Lilijana Fabris and I am a  teacher of computer science and information technology at 'Srednja sola Srecka Kosovela' secondary school in Sezana, Slovenia. I attend a course in Distance Learning for teachers, which is organized by MIRK Society for Project and Research work on the Internet from Ljubljana, Slovenia. This is  the second course in distance learning organized in my country. By taking this course I have realised that a lot of participants (teachers) do not have necessary knowledge about making interactive web sites and interactive exercises. In Slovenia, we have a lot of  learning materials on the Internet, but the problem is that a lot of these materials are not interactive. This is the reason why I decided to create an online course on this topic.

For a long time I have been using the program Hot Potatoes for this purpose,  and I am very satisfied with it. I find it very useful to create interactive exercises for studying foreign languages. I had already made an interactive web site using the above mentioned program: Preparing for final examination in English language.

Participants

The main target group are teachers of different subjects, but the course will be accessible to everyone interested in learning how to create interactive exercises - web pages. The following conditions are indispensable for successful passing of the course:

  • work and maintenance of Windows environment,
  • knowledge of Word,
  • use of Internet: e-mail, FTP,
  • basics of HTML creation.

Main objectives of the course

  • to teach the participants how to use the Hot Potatoes program for creation of interactive exercises. The participants will learn 6 useful tools:

a Multiple-Choice Quiz made with JBC,
a Gap-Fill Exercise made with JCloze,
a Text-Entry Exercise made with JQuiz,
a Crossword made with JCross, A Jumbled-Word   Exercise made with JMix,
a Matching Exercise made with JMatch)

with the assistance of which we create different types of interactive exercises. These are: gap fill, matching and true/false/not given exercises, and crossword puzzle,

  • understanding and acquisition of the mainstream methods of interactive web site design,
  • the course is specially designed to meet the needs of teachers for more attractive lessons, to get feedback from students and for checking the students' knowledge at distance.

What kind of participant behavior will you encourage, how?

I will encourage the participants to collaborate inside the group, exchange their experiences, to help and encourage each other, look for new ideas together, do brain storming, look for possibilities to exchange exercises with each other

How to achieve that:

  • personal presentation,
  • describing their experiences and work in this field,
  • their expectations from the course.

What are the communication possibilities within the course?

The course will start with face to face meeting, with an introduction to course methods, they will receive the guidelines for further lessons, after the first meeting they will proceed online. The participants will communicate within the group and with the teacher via e-mail and by using course forum and chat line.

For the presentation of the online course I will use a shell, a basic construction of a web site, which includes all necessary tools for the realization of the online course. The shell I am going to use is called Blackboard and can be found on this address.

What material/modules do you intend to develop at the workshop?

At home I will prepare the material, which will help the participants use the Hot Pot program. The materials will be graded into different levels (step by step), and every unit will include exercises for checking the acquired knowledge. After every lesson the participant will make their own exercise, which will be presented to other students.

I wish to put all the prepared materials, exercises and other things to a complete form and arrange everything in a shell at the Budapest course. I would also like to improve my knowledge about using a shell for online courses.

Assessment, evaluation

 After each unit of lessons, the participants will try to do the exercises in the form of a quiz. The goal of the quiz is evaluation, and revision and consolidation of their knowledge.

The teacher will evaluate the tasks made by the participants together with them. At the end of the course the best task will be awarded.

Lilijana Fabris

May, 2000

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