A windows based quiz question creator

A windows based quiz question creator

av Andy Fendall -
Antal svar: 15

Hi all,

I just wanted to let you know that I have developed a windows based application for creating quiz questions for Moodle Courses. The aim in developing the program is to speed up the creation of quizes. The questions are saved by the application in Moodle XML format and can be imported into a Moodle course in the usual way. It supports many question types, but most importantly it contains a wysiwyg cloze question editor, which does away with the need to manually write cloze question syntax.

The application is called Question Machine and can be downloaded, free of charge, from http://softwaremachine.co.nz/questionmachine.htm

The progam is still under development and any bug reports or suggested improvments would be most welcome.

Thanks

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Bernard Boucher -

Hi Andy,

first welcome to Moodle.

I just give a fast try to your question machine and it work fine, even with questions from an old 1.6.1 Moodle bank!

Print preview is also great with supported types ( we must add images in the xml file directory )!

Thanks for your contribution!

 

Salutations from Québec,

 

Bernard

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Tim Hunt -
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Just to say, that one of the things I am thinking about for the future is to add web services for automating question import/export, so that stand-alone question editing tools like this can directly load and save question from and to the Moodle question bank, instead of having to use Moodle XML files that users have to manually import/export.

Well, I will do it if people think it is worthwhile, I just thought I would mention it here to see if people had any comments.

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av david southern -

Tim,

I'm using respondus right now; great bit of software but I bought it mainly for the question import/export function. So yes, it's very worthwhile.

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av William Beazley -

That interface would be very helful.  If Examview could interface, I could stop worring about syncing two different question banks for every content topic.

Examview needs to get with the program where Moodle is concerned.

Bill

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Andy Fendall -

Hi Tim

That would be great from my point of view.

Question Machine could copy questions to a Moodle course with one click of a button, instead of going through the question import process.

Happy coding

Andy

 

 

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Tetsuo Kimura -

Thank you, Andy.  I'm sure Question Machine is very helpful for me and many moodlers around the world.

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Glenys Hanson -

Hi Andy and everybody,

What I'm hoping your Question Machine can do is to make it easy for students to create quizzes. From a constructivist/contructionist perspective, it's the students who should be doing the work, not the teacher. In a face to face situation, getting students to create quizzes for each other is both fun and pedagogically effective.

I'd love to be able to do the same thing easily online. I mean, students shouldn't have to spend a lot of time on mastering the technicalities of interactive quiz creation. I don't have a live class at the moment to test it on but maybe your Machine could be a solution. Has anybody tried?

Cheers,

Glenys

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Eoin Campbell -
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I developed a Word template (cf. www.moodle2word.net) with just this usage in mind, as I feel that the web-based interface is too unwieldy for younger students. The template provides a guided approach to creating each question via a table with cells for each component of an item, including stem, options, specific and general feedback.

Students can then import their questions directly from Word into Moodle with a single command, avoiding much fiddling around (although some teacher set-up is needed beforehand).

You could also use the Word template to create printed pages with blank tables to fill in for different types of question, as a preparatory exercise before doing it on the computer.

(I also carried out some research using the template with 12yos, and wrote up an MSc. thesis on  the results, which were quite positive. If you are interested, I can send you a copy.)

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Glenys Hanson -

Hi Eoin,

That sounds just like what I was looking for but I understand I'd have to install it on my server. I'm not sure my host would be willing to do that but I've download your files and will experiment locally.

Thanks a lot.

Glenys

 

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Cristina Berisso -

Hello Andy,

Welcome and thank you for your great contribution. In almost no time I was able to create a cloze question that imported cleanly into my Moodle 1.9 course. It imported with no problems all the LaTex and "Algebra" symbols. It was also great to be able to see real time the image I am using associated with the question! The little boxes where all I have to do is enter the correct answer are a true blessing (you have no idea how many times I have forgotten the "equal" sign and messed up the format when I did them by hand...). It is extremely quick and simple. Given how slow my Internet connection is at home, this program will save me an enormous amount of time. I will certainly recommend it to the training team of my College, since we are formally moving this coming semester from "Angel" to "Moodle."

Thank you a lot for your work and for sharing it with others. Your contribution is greatly valued and already being used and praised by the Moodle community!

Cristina

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Joseph Rézeau -
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Hi Andy and thanks for your welcome contribution to the Moodle Quiz activity! Your Quiz question creator will be a great help to those teachers who want to quickly create a simple quiz, and do not want to go through the lengthy process of creating questions one by one in the questions editing interface.

However, for people like me who are more interesting in using quizzes to facilitate students' learning rather than testing them, one important feature is missing from your questions editor, and that is individual feedback on each Answer. Feedback is an indispensable feature of any quiz activity (other than used for examination purposes). I am attaching a mock screen with that feature.

ATB

Joseph

PS.- What language is your application written in? Is it open source?

Bilaga 16-05-2011 09-36-28.jpg
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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av david southern -

Thanks Andy for your hard work! I have hundreds of quiz questions; I would love to be able to assign a question to an objective - anyone know if this is possible?

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Andy Fendall -

Moodle XML format does not have a field for Objective at the moment. You could use the Question catagory, where you have several questions per objective. Alternatively the objective could be stored in the General Feedback field in each question.

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Andy Fendall -

Hi Joseph

Thanks for your idea. I've agree with your opinion on feedback and I have been thinking about adding that fuctionality to Question Machine. Ultimately I'd like Question Machine to be able to produce Moodle Lessons.  However I'm working on a couple of other things at the moment so it might take a few weeks to get it done.

The program is written in vb.net.

Andy

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Re: A windows based quiz question creator

av Pierre Pichet -

From your help.

Numerical Answer - the answer must be a number – a tolerance value (±) can be provided, and also a unit (kilometre, mile etc.) The correct answer (within the range of tolerance and with the correct unit) gives 1 mark.

Cloze/Gapfill - A passage of text can be provided with gaps for missing words. The gaps can be filled with:

- a Missing Word Box, which contains the correct answer. Right click to add alternative correct answers. Equivalent to a short answer question.
- a Missing Word Dropdown, which contains the correct answer and several incorrect answers. Equivalent to a multi-choice, single answer question.
- a Missing Number Box, which contains a numerical answer. Right click to add a tolerance (±) value. Equivalent to a numerical question.

As you seem to validate the number and the tolerance , your validation should  only accept PHP number syntax i.e. without thousand separator and using . as decimal separator.
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