ICT conference (Hot Potatoes)

HOT POTATOES

What is Hot Potatoes?

Hot Potatoes is a fantastic free piece of software that allows you to create interactive activities as a cycle of interlinked webpages which will work offline as well as online. The software allows you to create 5 different types of activity each one focusing on a different skill or mixture of skills.

What can I use Hot Potatoes for in ACL? • Create cycles of different types of language learning exercises such as gapfill, sequencing, cloze, matching, crossword which are all marked by the computer • Upload exercises to a Moodle Learning platform and have students’ scores recorded automatically via scorm compatibility • Encourage learner autonomy as students can receive immediate feedback when working independently and access resources whenever they wish on their own computer • Create differentiated resources to cater for different levels and allow everyone to work at their own post.

How to get started

Go to http://hotpot.uvic.ca and click on Hot Potatoes 6.3 installer. Run through the installation wizard and hit Finish at the end.

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Enter a username and click OK to register the program.

Choose your interface language. To choose English, hit the Use English button.

This will launch the main Hot Potatoes interface.

Create a matchup exercise

Create a gap-fill exercise

Create a cycle of exercises

Create a shortanswer or multichoice quiz

Create an interactive crossword

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Create a jumbledsentence exercise

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Creating a J-Match exercise This is ideal for practising vocabulary but can also be used for verb practice. The software allows you to input a set of target language vocabulary and the corresponding English words or images. The programme then generates an interactive exercise students can complete and then have marked for feedback on their attainment. These marking and feedback procedures are built into the software and can be customised to allow all instructions etc. to be in the target language. The exercises are saved as webpages and so are easily uploaded to a website or intranet.

Click JMatch in the main interface.

Fill in the title and items on the left and right. In this simple example, we are matching furniture items with their English equivalent.

Save your file by clicking File and Save.

Alternatively, click the floppy disc icon with a red strip at the top.

Choose where to save your JMatch file and click Save.

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Creating a JMix exercise This is best used for sentence structure practice or spellings of words. You input a sentence or word and the programme jumbles it up. Students have to drag the words/letters into the correct order on the line.

Click JMix in the main interface

Put the different words/short phrases into a list in the Main Sentence window

Save your file by clicking File and Save.

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Creating a JCloze exercise This is useful for practising vocabulary but is ideal for verb practice as it allows students to fill in gaps in sentences with the correct word, in this case the correct form of the verb. For differentiation purposes, students can choose from a drop down box containing all options, or they have to write the word in, suitably challenging for high attaining students.

Click JCloze in the main interface.

Add a title and sentences you want to put gaps in.

Highlight a word or short phrase and click the Gap button. In this simple example we are conjugating the verb avoir – to have in French.

Click OK. Add a Clue if you wish.

Repeat the same procedure for the other gaps and click File and Save.

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Creating a JCross exercise This is useful for vocabulary practice and verb conjugation as it is a word level exercise. Students click on the number of the square to reveal the clue, which could be an English word, an image, a gapped sentence etc.

They then type in and check their answers.

Click JCross in the main interface

Add a title for your crossword and click the Insert Words icon. Add your words or short phrases in a list and hit the Make the grid button.

This is what your crossword should look like. If some of the words are not included. Repeat the procedure and increase the Maximum grid size by changing the default value of 20 to a higher value.

Hit the Add Clues button.

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Select a word, and enter the clue for that word in the appropriate box underneath the Across or Down sections. Hit the OK button and repeat the procedure for the other clues.

Click the OK button at the bottom of the window when you’ve finished.

Click File and Save.

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Creating a JQuiz exercise This style of exercise can be used for checking general comprehension or with an extended text or other stimulus e.g. a street map. Students have to choose the correct answer for each statement or question, either as multiple choice or as a free answer typed in a box. As with JMix and JCloze, in cases where there are 2 or more correct versions of the answer, the software allows all correct answers to be entered by the maker when creating the exercise, so that students are not penalised for giving a correct answer that ‘the computer’ does not recognise letter for letter.

Click JQuiz in the main interface.

Hit Yes when you see this message.

Creating a multiple choice exercise in JQuiz

a)

c)

b) Put a tick in the box next to Correct. b)

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a) Select Multiple-choice from the dropdown menu. Add a title in the box provided. Put a question in the box underneath and add your questions.

c) Click on the upwards arrow next to the first question to go to the screen for the second question. Repeat the procedure until you have added all the necessary questions.

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Click File and Save.

Creating a short answer exercise in JQuiz

The procedure for creating a short answer exercise is almost identical to the way in which you create a multiple choice one. The only difference is you select Short-answer from the dropdown menu instead of Multiplechoice.

When saving your new exercise, click File and Save As instead of File and Save otherwise you will overwrite your first exercise.

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Using the Masher to create a cycle of exercises The Masher allows you to take a batch of Hot Potatoes files and turn them into a cycle of exercises which are automatically hyperlinked together. This is a great timesaver and also lets you format your webpages according to how you want them to appear. This can mean changing the colours of different elements, hyperlinking pages together, adding target language rubrics and including personalised comments for feedback.

Click The Masher in the main interface

Hit the Add files button.

Browse for the Hot Potatoes files you’ve created. Click the first item. Hold down the Shift key and click the last item to select all the files at once. Click Open.

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Click OK to All.

Click the Appearance tab and click on the rainbow icons to format a consistent look for all your pages.

Click the Buttons tab and change the default instructions into the target language or leave them as they are.

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Click on the Index tab and add a title for the cycle of exercises you are producing.

Click File and Save project.

Click the Files tab and hit the Browse button.

Select where you want to export the finished cycle of exercises. Hit the Build unit button.

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Click Yes when you see this message.

As you can see The Masher has created an index page which hyperlinks to the cycle of exercises in turn and each exercise has the same visual format.

The JCross exercise

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The JMatch exercise

The JMix exercise

The JQuiz Multiple-choice exercise

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The JQuiz Short-answer exercise

The JCloze exercise

Having created a set of hyperlinked exercises, you can upload them to the web or run them offline. They can be added as a module to the learning platform Moodle which is SCORM compliant meaning that when students do the exercises their scores can be recorded centrally allowing tutors to monitor individual progress easily.

These are simple examples which give a flavour of what is possible with Hot Potatoes. You can produce more complicated exercises incorporating images, audio and video files as well as reading texts. This is only an introduction. I would encourage you to explore further.

Well done you’ve completed the tutorial!

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