Developing class materials: interactive exercise creators

 

(Week 4: Jan 30-Feb 5)

 

 

 

 

 

Moderators: Fernanda Rodrigues (Portugal), Marijana Smolcec (Croatia), Svetlana Obenausova (Czech Republic) & Teresa Almeida d'Eca (Portugal)

 

Guest presenters: Arjana Blazic (Croatia), Cláudio Azevedo (Brazil)

 

 

 

Objectives

 

By the end of this week you will have:   explored different tools to create online interactive exercises, worksheets and surveys explored different features of these tools created activities using some of these tools and shared them with the community posted links to my creations in the Participants Productions page attended live presentations on the topic of the week commented on the presentations of the week

 

 

 

Activities

 

Task 1

• Choose an interactive exercise maker (from the table below or the Tools page) and explore it (either on your own or with a friend)
• Choose another one if you don't like it
• Make a short test exercise when you find a tool you like

 

Task 2

• Create an exercise for one-two of these skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary or grammar

 

Task 3

• Explore the software for creating online worksheets and surveys (from the table below or the Tools)
• Create an online worksheet and/or a survey for your students

 

ViP:

• Share your creations!! Post the links to all your work in your blogs/wikis and in the Participants' Productions page

  
Task 4

• Join us for Arjana Blazic's presentation "Tools for online testing" at the Elluminate Webheads vRoom on Tuesday January 31 at 17.00 GMT

          http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=273662 (Time converter)

• Share your reflections on the session in our "Comment Live Sessions" page (link is also in the SideBar)

 

Task 5

• Join us for Cláudio Azevedo's presentation "From Darkness to a Sparkling Connected ELT Community" at the Elluminate Webheads vRoom on Saturday, February 4, at 17:00 GMT http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=273662 (Time converter)

• Share your reflections on the session in our "Comment Live Sessions" page (link is also in the SideBar)

 

 

Tools to explore

 

 

Interactive exercise creators
No registration needed	Registration needed
Hot Potatoes  [download]	Script-O!  ("not free"; has a free 30-day trial period)
Web Sequitur & Web Rhubarb [download] (demo version is free)	ProProfs  (has one free section)
Quandary  [download]	Quizstar
Eclipse Crossword [download] - great for printing out the exercises, can also create html exercises.	Quizlet
	DJordan's Self-Scoring Quizzes
	ClassMarker
	Educaplay
Online worksheets
No registration needed	Registration needed
Tools for Educators	Worksheet Wizard
Online Surveys and Poll creators
No registration needed	Registration needed
	SurveyMonkey
	Zoomerang
Other tools
No registration needed	Registration needed
Crossword Compiler (professional version is not free; there is a demo version that you have to download and install)	Quia ("not free"; has a free 30-day trial period)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-check   I have.... explored at least one tool (interactive exercise, worksheet or survey) created at least one activity with one of these tools posted the activity link to the Participants' Productions page and in my blog/wiki attended the live session/listened to the recording commented on the live session

 

 

 

 

Suggested readings

 

• Assessment for learning: Improving feedback in interactive exercises. Mar. 2011. (Based on HotPot exos.)

 

• Babicka, B. and Nevaril, J. (2008). Hot Potatoes - How Not to Get Burnt.  (Interesting hints on the usage of Hot Potatoes. After opening the file, click on the text to enlarge it.)

 

• Computer-based language learning with interactive web exercises (2011). (Mainly based on Hot Potatoes; presentations at an Italian Conf.: ICT for Language Learning, Oct. 2011)

 

A short note: HotPotatoes terms of use have changed:

"Hot Potatoes is now freeware. The complete version of the programs is now available for free, from the Downloads section . The free version of Hot Potatoes for Windows is version 6.3, and the Java version is 6.1."
"The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project you like. It is not open-source."

 

• Godwin-Jones, Robert (2007). Creating interactive Web exercises for language learning.

 

• Torres, Isabel Perez (2003). Creating Materials Online with Free Teacher Tools. TESOL Spain, Newsletter 2003.

(This article focuses on this utility of the Internet. Some sites are presented where teachers can easily design activities and exercises online, such as quizzes, tests, puzzles or surveys, which require no advanced computer skills. Included are only those tools that are free for educational use for obvious reasons.)

 

A short note:

2 of the sites mentioned in the article no longer exist; one is Headline Makers:  http://lang.swarthmore.edu/makers/index.htm ;

when you click on the link you get the message: The server at lang.swarthmore.edu is taking too long to respond.

You can find the old site here and a new one here

 

The other is Trackstar; the link takes us to a site about Online Casino and Gambling; the present site is:

http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/index.jsp

 

• What are authoring tools for MFL? (2005) (An interesting article about Authoring tools. However, some of the software referred to is not free.)

 

Looking for more inspiration?

• http://www.edhelper.com/vocabulary.htm
• http://elllo.org/ - Very good for listening practice.
• http://www.digibridge.net/teresadeca/school/activities.htm - Teresa's Web-based Activities