Hi Gordon,
It has been a while since I have posted. I know that I still have a thread from way back that I need to do some testing on yet. It has to do with moving a TaskChain from one course section to another without crashing the lesson. I worry about doing this kind of testing when the server has active courses, so it is something I intend to test out this summer. I have updated Moodle a few times since the issue first arose so maybe it has gone away as an issue
I love TaskChain given the tools that it can assemble into lessons (sequitor, all the hot potatoes stuff including the hacks by Michael Rottmeier) and TaskChain's tireless ability to keep track of it all in the grade book. However, I usually use it for lessons where the students can master content through repeated attempts. Yesterday, I decided to use a Hot Potatoes multiple-choice for a test through TaskChain. I set my Hot Potatoes config file to the following to reduce the amount of feedback that students got. It wasn't perfect but still quite good. The fill in the blanks still gave hints but they didn't know if they got the multiple-choice right.
https://moodle.org/pluginfile.php/199/mod_forum/post/1243812/configfile.jpg
Three issues arose:
1. When I went to put a password on the test, this password kept showing up in subsequently added TaskChains. It also appeared on each of the chains. So a student would enter it to do the test but got a blank white screen afterwards. I had to go in and remove it from each task and then it worked. And when it got added to a TaskChain with several tasks, I had to remove it from each task there. My impression here is that adding a password gets added to each task in addition to the initial entry into the lesson (lesson being a set of tasks, i.e. hot potatoes files). However, when asked for the password upon entering the TaskChain, no problem. But then they aren't asked for a password for each hot potatoes file as it loads. Nor should they be to my mind.
2. The second issue of course is that I had trouble getting rid of the password being added to new taskchains as I developed them. I would create a new chain without a password but the password would still show up. I solved it by going in and removing the password from each individual chain and that seemed to removed setting in subsequent taskchains that I developed.
3. The third issue that arose is that the students weren't getting all of the answers correct but didn't really know which ones were wrong in the case of multiple-choice anyways. So they had to simply decide when they were finished. TaskChain wasn't taking them out because wrong answers were still present. I simply had them backtrack using the breadcrumbs which had them abandon the TaskChain putting their final score into the gradebook. I expect I could have put an exit button of some kind. Perhaps there are various ways to handle this. There is a bit a challenge here
Finally, and I know that this is a side issue. However, when I was a user of WebAssign, it very nicely deployed assignments on a per group or per person basis based on dates assigned to those deployments without having to create multiple assignments and through it multiple entries into a common gradebook used by many students over several classes in the same course. I know that sentence was jam packed and perhaps reflects the complexity of the issue. But I am unaware of how deployments of a taskchain or quiz might be done in Moodle based on group or individual, date and time even though version two is apparently equipped to do so. If anyone reading is up on this kind of thing and can point me to information, I'd appreciate it. I do have my students in groups and this is no doubt part of the picture. But what happens when I want to deploy an extension to an individual. Frankly, knowing this gives me tools to get around using passwords on TaskChains etc.
Thanks Gordon,
Mel
using Moodle 2.8.3+
