Question Bank for Newbies

Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -
Number of replies: 23

Advanced users can help the newbies by rotating the monitoring to this thread area. Here is my first newbie question:

I successfully imported the cloze question that hot potatoes created. The Hot Pot module is activated:

john matylonek Mushing 6 Mushing 600 0 The glider is mushing and responding sluggishly to your commands, the glider is entering the first stages of a stall1wing stops flying one word . You should pull in1action . Gap-fill exercise Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues! Correct! Well done. Some of your answers are incorrect. Incorrect answers have been left in place for you to change. The next correct letter has been added to the answer. 1 0 0 0 6 nextpage.htm 0 1 0 0 Your time is over! Check OK Hint [?] 0 0 Your score is => <= Index 1 1 0 contents.htm contents.htm Geneva,Arial,sans-serif small #C0C0C0 #000000 #FFFFFF #000000 #0000FF #0000CC #000000 http://yourserver.com/cgi-bin/FormMail.pl you@yourserver.com Please enter your name: one two three

Previewing this in the quiz results in nonfunctionality. What I am doing wrong?

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi John. Did you import the JCL file or the htm file? Are you definitely wanting to use the hotpotatoes cloze question in the quiz - it works perfectly well in the Hotpot module.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

 

Thanks for your patience with me....this is very complex!

I must be totally misunderstanding something here. The only function I see of the Hot Pot module (in the activity menu) is uploading a file. The choice in activity menu is Hot Pot. Is there something missing here? I am assuming the module somehow allows moodle to intrepret the uploaded files created by Hot Potatoes software. Can you use this Hot Pot on the Moodel page to somehow edit a cloze question and add it the question bank without using a Hot Potatoes app on your PC?

To answer your question, I just uploaded the file the Hot Potatoes editing software created,  a jcl file....

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Plenty of patiencesmile

Hotpotatoes is free software you download to your pc and make exercises with, like jcl for the gap-fill jcloze. You then upload the file to the Hotpot module in Moodle and it will display it for students to do and the grades are automatically assigned to the gradebook.

If you  prefer the Moodle quiz (which is not as easy to manipulate as hotpotatoes) then you can "import" to the quiz question bank Hot potatoes files - and indeed other file types too - to use in your quiz. But do you have a reason for doing this, as opposed simply to uploading them to Moodle for students via the Hotpot module?

Not sure if this is of any use (a matching ex rather than cloze,  but the process is the same) as I don't know how much of Hotpotatoes you already know :

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

I simply am daft to this question, "If you  prefer the Moodle quiz (which is not as easy to manipulate as hotpotatoes) then you can "import" to the quiz question bank Hot potatoes files - and indeed other file types too - to use in your quiz. But do you have a reason for doing this, as opposed simply to uploading them to Moodle for students via the Hotpot module?"

Yes, I am trying to import a hot potatoes quiz cloze question into a moodle quiz. I am on the course quiz page. I am going the activity menu and choosing Hot Pot. A page comes up with a file browser button. I choose Mushing.jcl on my computer, the file created by Hot Potatoes software on my PC.  It goes somewhere? Where? In my last attempt, I somehow found a way to use import under course administration. Of course, the question that entered the question bank did not work.

Now, when I choose this import function....a blank page that says done results.  I am just amazed at the skill of all you!

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Stan Bogdanov -

Hi John,

Here's an easy scenario:

You have a HotPotatoes cloze on your PC called Mushing.jcl. This is your HotPotatoes source file.

In Moodle, (Turn editing on) Add an Activity -> HotPotatoes Quiz

You should see:

uploading hotpot

 

Upload the Mushing.jcl source file.

(Alternatively, you may export the source to html output from within HotPotatoes and then upload the Mushing.htm)

Click Choose

upload-hp-1

Set other parameters ... then hit Save and return to course.

You should see this (your icon will be slightly diff. YMMV, TIMTOWTDI)

upload-hp-2

Clicking on the link will cause HotPot Module to convert the .jcl to display in Moodle.

(If you have uploaded the .htm output, it'll just display with all the fHotPotatoes functionalities.)

Stuff gets recorded, like students' grades, start-end time, etc.

You'll fint that fun!

Cheers

Stan

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In reply to Stan Bogdanov

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Thanks Stan

It looks like my installation of hot pot is missing something....here is what I see

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi John,

you are using Moodle 2.0, which does *not* allow importing of Hot Potatoes quiz files into the question bank. Or to put it another way, you cannot import Hot Potatoes files into the question bank of Moodle 2.0 at the moment. It may possible one day, but we are not there yet.

In order to use your JCloze file in Moodle 2.0, please add it as a HotPot activity. Glenys, Mary and Stan have alreay given you alot of good info on that, but if you need more help, don't hesitate to ask.

all the best
Gorodn

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Thank you Gordon, Stan and Glenys for all your help.  So importing files from the the hot potatoes software output does not work...I'm still confused with the seeming contradiction between Stan and Gordon. If I make seperate hot pot activity that will be seperate from my current moodle created quiz? I don't want seperate quiz. At first, I thought you guys meant that you do an "activity" in the editing mode of the quiz. I just looked and there is no such function I can see.

Can we put this another way....is there ANY way of inputting a clooze question in the moodle quiz edit mode even if has nothing to do with Hot Pot or Hot Potatoes?

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi John,

I do not see any contradiction between what Stan said and what I said. Stan was describing how to specify a JCloze file to be used in a HotPot activity on Moodle 1.9, but we now know that you have Moodle 2.0, which has a different way of storing and uploading files.

Furthermore, we now know that what you are really trying to do is input a cloze question into the question bank for Moodle 2.0 for use in a Quiz module activity. As you say, this enquiry has "nothing to do with Hot Pot or Hot Potatoes" on Moodle 2.0.

To input a close question into the a Moodle Quiz activity, go to the question edit screen and choose "Embedded answers" (see screenshot). You may find the following Moodle docs page useful:

If you have further questions about the Quiz module, the people on this forum will do their best to help you, but you may get better help on the Quiz module forum:

regards
Gordon

Attachment quiz.embedded.answers.jpg
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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Stan Bogdanov -

John,

(from your screenshot) Press the Add... button to upload the file (.jcl or .htm) ...

and then tell us what happens.

Stan

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In reply to Stan Bogdanov

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Stan

When I hit "add" it pops up the server file, recent file, upload a file, private files picker window. There is mushing.jcl which I choose. The filename appears under the add window. Then when I hit "save and return to the course" the window goes blank and I'm left to hit the browser window back button which takes me back to the adding a new HotPot to Topic 1 page. But, now the filename has disappeared from the attachment window. Going back to the topic outline shows no change whatsoever.

Thanks for trying to analyze this...

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Stan Bogdanov -

John

in another thread ... it may be a specific PHP version issue...what PHP version are you running?

it seems the same problem occurs with other people's installations, so you may want to follow this discussion http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=165491#p731981

Stan

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In reply to Stan Bogdanov

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Hi Stan

I specifically checked the PHP version in PHP admin area of my host cpanel.  Its post 2.0 Also, the reason I am here is because I finally read that Mr Batteson came out the latest Hot Pot module, so I extracted that into my mod area. I am following the sequence in your swf video except that I am trying to import the cloze question into a moodle quiz activity.

I will read the installation forum above.

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Stan

Another way I have been trying to include a fill-in-the-blank question into my moodle quiz is by going the question bank of said quiz. Hitting the "import" button. Being presented a list file format option below and then uploading the mushing.jcl file into the bank. I have been selecting Cloze. Should I be selecting something else? The stuff that is imported does not seem to make programming sense...should it be XML code?

Aiken format
Blackboard
Blackboard
Blackboard V6+
Blackboard V6+
Embedded Answers (Cloze)
Embedded Answers (Cloze)
Examview
Examview
GIFT format
GIFT format
Learnwise format
Learnwise format
Missing word format
Missing word format
Moodle XML format
Moodle XML format
WebCT format
WebCT format
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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi John,

If you compare the two screenshots below, you'll see that one of the import choices is Hot Potatoes format in Moodle 1.9 but this doesn't (yet) exist in Moodle 2.0 because (I think) Hot Potatoes is not (yet) part of the core.

So it seems to be the case that you cannot at the moment import a Hot Potatoes JCloze into Quiz.

This may not be what you want, but it does seem clear.

Be patient!

Cheers,

Glenys

Attachment 21-01-2011 19-42-18.png
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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Stan, Glenys, Gordon

I apologize that my request resulted in so much confusion. But, I have just discovered the simple solution to my problem.

As I become more proficient, I promise to put out as much effort to clarify to others. Please keep this Question Bank for Newbies thread going.

All I wanted to do is include fill in the blank questions into my moodle quiz modules. I have discovered that it works perfectly if use the following format in the embedded choice option:

The capital of France is {1:SHORTANSWER:%100%Paris#Congratulations!
~%50%Marseille#No, that is the second largest city in France (after
Paris).~*#Wrong answer. The capital of France is Paris, of course.}.

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi John,

Glad you've found the solution to your Quiz problem - and that's where this discussion should continue, shouldn't it? On the Quiz Forum.

You'd probably have had a quicker answer if you'd asked your quesion on the Quiz Forum - the people there usually know better than the people on the HotPot Forum how to answer questions about Quiz.

But thanks to you, now I know how to import questions from files into Quiz in Moodle 2.0 - it's in quite different place from in Moodle 1.9.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Stan Bogdanov

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Thanks Stan

It looks like my installation of hot pot is missing something....here is what I see

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Please indicate the plugin settings required for Hot Pot. The settings page is ambiguous. Should these be checked or not?

Show HotPots on MyMoodlehotpot_enablemymoodle
Default: Yes

This settings controls whether HotPots are listed on the MyMoodle page or not

Enable HotPot cachehotpot_enablecache
Default: Yes

Maintaining a cache of HotPot quizzes can dramatically speed up the delivery of quizzes to the students. Clear HotPot cache

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Glenys Hanson -

(I wrote this while you and Mary were posting messages - but you'll see Mary and I say much the same thing in different words. wink)

Hi John,

I'll try and clarify a few things for you. Sorry if some of this you already know.

First Quiz and Hot Potatoes are two quite separate Moodle activities. It's true that they can create quite similar quizzes but they do it in very different ways.

Quiz is a "native" part of Moodle but is quite complex for newcomers to understand. It works in Moodle 2.0 -  though some things need a little polishing.

Hot Potatoes is a quiz generater developed quite outside of Moodle. You can put Hot Potatoes quizzes on any web site, not just Moodle. To create a Hot Potatoes quiz you have first to download the application fromthe  Hot Potatoes home page and create the quizzes on your computer. (In my opinion, it's easier for beginners to learn how to use Hot Potatoes than the Moodle quiz.) Then you have to upload your quizzes with the HotPot Module where they will display on your course page and look like this.

With the name of your quiz of course, not "JCloze standard".

The scores will be recorded in the Moodle gradebook.

It's true that in Moodle 1.9 you can import Hot Potatoes files into Moodle quizzes but I wouldn't recemmend it for a beginner. I don't think that this is working yet in Moodle 2.0

The Hot Potatoes Module has only been available for Moodle 2.0 for a bout 10 days and we "oldies" are still testing it to get the bugs out - though most of it works fine. I would wait a bit before trying to use the Hot Potatoes Module in Moodle 2.0. I don't think it will be long: maybe 2/3 weeks.

In the meantime, you can learn how to use the Moodle Quiz - you can do a lot with that though it may take some time to get the hang of.

Personally, I don't intend to use Moodle 2.0 with real students before September 2011 at the earliest, not particularly because of Quiz and Hot Potatoes but because of all the other problems I read about on these forums. This is true of many applications: only brave souls try out the ".0" version, the rest of us nervous nellies wait for the ".1". But I'll do a lot of playing with it before then off line because Moodle 2 has some great functionalities that I'm eager to try out.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by john matylonek -

Hi Glenys

Thanks for clarifying that my problem could be that the Hot Pot module cannot, as of yet, import cloze type questions created by Hot Potatoes into moodle. I have already created several fine working moodle quizzes in multiple choice, matching, and true and false formats.  I did not find it difficult at all. However, I would really love to have a fill in the blank option.  I hope you are right that this capability has not been addressed in the moodle module. Would Mr Batteson shed light on this?

I have decided that checking the boxes in the hot pot activity plugin settings is the way to go. They were checked by default already, I believe.

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In reply to john matylonek

Re: Question Bank for Newbies

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi John,

The way you phrase it isn't quite correct: you can use the Hot Pot Module to display Hot Potatoes JCloze exercises on your Moodle course page. That's what Stan shows so clearly.

It's the Quiz activity that can import Hot Potatoes exercises - not the other way around. It's this that may not be possible yet - and yes, I'm sure Gordon Bateson will put us straight on that tomorrow. Why do you want to do that? Your students can do the exercises just as well as in the Hot Potatoes Module - unless you're really wanting to use it as a test? The Quiz activity is better for testing.

Cheers,

Glenys

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