Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Timo Kozlowski -
Number of replies: 7

Hi,

today, one of the teachers at my institution complained about the Hotpot module in Moodle. He wants to do some final term examination with a Hot Potatoes Close quiz in Moodle. And the rendering of two options is not what he's intending to use.

First, he wants to include a list of all possible gaps for the students to chose from. The HTML rendering by Hot Potatoes includes this list, the Moodle rendering kind of omits it. There is only the number "1".

Second, he wants to disable the clues attached to each gap (i.e. the boxes with a question mark). They don't show in the Hot Potatoes rendering whereas the do show in the Moodle rendering.

We run Moodle 1.5.3 (2005060230), and the Hotpot module (2005031419) on an Apache Webserver (2.0.46) and MySQL as database.

Is there any workaround for this problem?

Best wishes,

Timo

Attachment testinmoodle.png
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In reply to Timo Kozlowski

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Timo,
there are two solutions I can think of.

First you could ask the teacher to upload the "html" file for the quiz, instead of the "jcl" file.

Second you could install version 2.1 of the HotPot module, which has many fixes for many problems, including the display of drop-down menus in JCloze gaps, and the disabling of the "Clue" buttons.

HotPot v2.1 is available from here:

The above download includes a README.txt file which tells you where to get the language files

all the best
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by jon kent -

hi

you mentioned uploading the html file rather than the jcl one - is this generally better practice for all hotpot quizzes in moodle? 

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In reply to jon kent

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Gordon Bateson -
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It depends smile

Using HTML versions of the quizzes has the advantage that the server doesn't have to work so hard to send the quiz out to the student, so the quiz usually goes out more quickly (about half a second to a second faster). Also, if you are using HotPot v2.0, which comes with Moodle 1.5, there are several problems with the fine tuning of the presentation of the quiz. For example, the problems you reported.

On the other hand, using the Hot Potatoes source files has the following advantages:
  1. if you want to modify the contents of the quiz, or if the template changes, you do not need to regenerate the HTML file version of the quiz on your PC and upload it to Moodle
  2. you always use latest templates (the templates define the layout and functionality of the quiz)
  3. you will be able to use templates for different devices (old browsers, mobile phones, Flash players)
The mobile phone and Flash templates are under way. Indeed they will be on show at the JALTCALL 2006 conference in Hokkaido in early June.

You may be interested to know that in the future, I have in mind to use a cache, kind of short-term memory, to the HotPot module. Everytime the HotPot module is required to generate HTML from an HP source file, it would first look in it's cache and check to see if it had previously generated HTML version of the quiz. If an HTML version of the quiz was found in the cache, and it was more recent than the HP source file, the HotPot module would send out the HTML from the cache. Otherwise, the HotPot module would generate new HTML and put that in the cache.

all the best
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Timo Kozlowski -

Hi Gordon,

thank you very much for your answer.

First you could ask the teacher to upload the "html" file for the quiz, instead of the "jcl" file.

That's what I suggested already, but in that case he cannot see which students gave which answer. And that's what - among others - what he wanted.

Second you could install version 2.1 of the HotPot module, which has many fixes for many problems, including the display of drop-down menus in JCloze gaps, and the disabling of the "Clue" buttons.

I will try this one, and tell about my experience.

All the best,
Timo

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In reply to Timo Kozlowski

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Hello again Timo,
regarding your teacher using the HTML file, you said:

he cannot see which students gave which answer

but actually I think he can see exactly the same detailed information as if the quiz had been run form a "jcl" file. If it doesn't work like that for you, I would be interested to see the two sets of results.

Hope you enjoy HotPot v2.1!
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Timo Kozlowski -

Hello Gordon,

but actually I think he can see exactly the same detailed information as if the quiz had been run form a "jcl" file. If it doesn't work like that for you, I would be interested to see the two sets of results.

Yes, it actually works. Before reading your mail, I did not realize you could upload the html file produced by Hot Potatoes itself using the hotpot module. I linked it before as a "plain" html file (because sometimes, I do not want it to be a "test" but an activity to practice something new).

Anyway, I will ask our provider to upgrade the hotpot module for us.

Thank you very much for your kind help!

Timo

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Rendering of Hotpot Quiz in Moodle deranged

by Timo Kozlowski -
Dear Gordon,

HotPot 2.1 solved the problems with the wrong rendering of the hotpot quiz.

Thanx a lot!

Bye,
Timo
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