Glenys Hanson

Hi again Chip,

Just thought you might not know how to find and add a "ReadingText".

Here's a screenshot. You'll find more info in the Help files under "General introduction and help".

Cheers,

Glenys

Hi Chip,

The words "Lesson", "Quiz", "Module" and other common words all have special meanings in the Moodle. It's maybe a good ideal to avoid using them, except in the Moodle sense, so people who are trying to help you don't get confused.

Also please add screen shots of what you want to achieve or create a demo on Gordon's site - that avoids terminology problems and will get you quicker answers.

I understand you want to create a "learning unit" with information on one side of the web page and an MCQ or a Close exercise on the other half. Is that right?

In nearly all Hot Potatoes exercises there is a "reading text" area to which not only text, but images, graphs, audio and video files can be added and will appear on the left. Here's an example: Phrasal Verbs: in - out. (And the same exercise on a Moodle site: http://uepd.quizport.com/mod/hotpot/attempt.php?id=3243 but you have to create a (free) account on the site and enroll (free) in the course to see it.)

You can also add the same items in the "Exercise subtitle" field above the exercise questions: Here's an example (not in Moodle but it could be): Choosing - Time expressions 1.

You can modify the layout with CSS. Here's a tutorial: https://hotpot.uvic.ca/howto/hacking_hotpot.htm#Example2.

You'll find a lot of useful Hot Potatoes tutorials and demos on Stan Bogdanov's site. They're intended for people who are already familiar with Hot Potatoes. So maybe you should start with his Taxonomy which shows  demos of basic Hot Potatoes exercises, for example, Columbus seems to me similar to what you're trying to do.

Good luck!

Glenys

Hi Chip,

Can I ask what your pedagogical objective is with this exercise?

As far as I can see, this type of exercise functions as a test, not a learning exercise. Not only is there no individual feedback for each answer, the student can't even know which answers are right and which wrong. This can be very frustrating for students who are weak on the subject concerned if they are trying to understand it.

Like you, it took me a while to suss out how this question type works. This what it says in the help file: "If the answer is not completely correct, the student will see a readout of the number of correct choices, and one piece of feedback; this would be the feedback from the first item in the list which was either selected when it shouldn't be selected, or not selected when it should be selected" but I think Gordon's explanation above is clearer.

If it's hard for us teachers to understand what the scoring means, it's even more difficult for students to do so.

That's why I've never actually used this exercise type. I mainly create learning exercises and it's therefore essential that students know whether their response is right or wrong. Being able to provide feedback for each specific question is useful too. Even as a test, I prefer a straightforward multiple-choice format because I can more easily see which questions are haven't been understood by individuals or groups. (In fact, for testing I preferred Quiz: I used to write my questions in Hot Potatoes and then important them into Quiz where it was easier to analyse the results.)

I'd be interested to see examples of this question type successfully used for either learning or testing. I may be missing something.

Cheers,

Glenys

Hi Gordon and Chip,

Here are some of my Hot Potatoes exercises presented through the Moodle "Book" module:

• Limericks
  
• Pointing words
  
• Making Questions - Tuberculosis and Women

I should make my reasons for using the "Book" module clear: it is away of making Hot Potatoes exercises available to users who do NOT have to create an account on the Moodle site or enrol in the course. The intended public is not students but teachers - so they can see some of the possibilities of using Hot Potatoes. Book is very flexible and easy to use, but the scores of students are NOT recorded in the Gradebook.

I've retired now but if I were still teaching and had classes of students I'd use TaskChain because the course creator can control how the students work through the exercises and the students scores are recorded in the Gradebook. TaskChain takes more time to learn to use than Book but it gives the course creator/teacher infinitely more control over how the students work. When I was working, I used the Moodle 1.9 equivalent of TaskChain, QuizPort, and was very happy with it.

Cheers,

Glenys

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