Interactive exercises and quizzes

  

(Week 4: Feb 2 - Feb 8, 2015)

 

 

 

Moderators:

 Svetlana Obenausova (Czech Republic), Helen Davies (France)

 

 

 

Objectives: 

 

By the end of this week you will have: explored different tools to create online interactive exercises, quizzes, and surveys created activities using some of these tools and shared them with the community using the Participants' Production Page and in your blog/wiki   commented on exercises or quizzes of other participants in the Participants' Production Page got  acquainted with Big Marker commented on the readings using this link in the Edmodo Group

 

Activities

 

Task 1

• Read about the possibilities of the tools in the Suggested reading below
• Choose one or two interactive exercise makers (from the table below) and explore them. 
• Choose other ones if you don't like your first choice
• Create an  exercise using the tool you like
• Post the link to your exercise in your slot of the Participants Productions Page , you can also embed your exercise in your wiki or blog
• Now you can explore another tool and create another exercise if you like. Remember to share your links with us through G+. 

 

Task 2

• Solve the quizzes and polls prepared for you in our Edmodo classroom as an inspiration for you 
• Since you signed up to Edmodo as teachers, you can create your own quiz and check how other participants solved it
• Solve other participants' quizzes and polls placed in Edmodo.

 

 

Task 3

• Explore the software for creating online surveys and quizzes (from the table below)
• Create an online quiz or survey for your students or for participants of this ICT4ELT session, and send it to others through G+ 
• Post the link to your survey or quiz in your slot of the Participants' Production Page

 

 

Task 4 

• Go to the Participants' Production Page and have a look at exercises or quizzes of other participants
• Answer the survey questions in other participants' surveys 
• Provide feedback to other participants. Place your comments in the slot provided to two or three of them, try choosing those that have not received feedback yet.
• If you know other interactive exercise makers you are very happy with, you can share the links through our Google+ community - Tips from participants. 

 

Task 5

• Get acquainted with the Big Marker. Follow this link and create an account and join our group there. You can register for our Question and Answer session.
• Here you can find information about Big Marker 

 

Task 6

• You can join us in our Question and Answer session in Big Marker on February 6th, 2015 at 6:30 PM GMT.  You need to register following this link beforehand. Once registerd, you can join us any time on Friday between 6:30 PM and 7:30 PM GMT and stay several minutes or one hour, up to you.
• Important - Big Marker works well in Google Chrome browser, not in others. 
• If you have any questions before that, just ask them through our Google+ Community

 

Task 7

• Read this week's readings (at the bottom of this page) and post your comments on the readings to the Edmodo Group Please use only this link for your reading comments, if you send them as posts to Edmodo, it creates chaos.

 

Here are some useful tutorials to get you started 

 

• Learning Apps - here is just one example of a possible exercise

Choose the language of the tutorial by clicking the flag in the upper right-hand corner. The easiest way to start with this tool is browsing apps of other people, choosing one you like and then clicking the button Create similar app. Then you erase the content and leave just the template of the exercise. You need to create your account to do that, of course. 

 

• Edmodo -
• how to create a poll 
• how to create a quiz 

 

 

• Hot Potatoes - this is standard tutorial from the producers of HP, underneath you will find our tutorials with pictures.
• Configuration of exercises
• More about crosswords
• Reading comprehension exercises
• Inserting pictures
• A video tutorial on inserting pictures viewable online 
• Uploading your exercises to the Web
• How to upload your HP exercise to our wiki and create a link that opens the exercise without the download a new tutorial for you

 

• Survey Monkey: Creating an account and a first survey
• Web Sequitur and Web Rhubarb tutorial
• Quandary tutorial and examples of mazes
• A tutorial with screenshots and another example
• Eclipse Crossword
• PhotoPeach used for quizzes 
• Kubbu
• How to create Match activities 
• How to prepare Kubbu quizzes with Composer 
• Educaplay 
• My example 

 

 

Tools to explore

 

 

Interactive exercise and quiz creators
No registration needed	Registration needed
Hot Potatoes  [download] There are detailed tutorials above with pictures and explanations	Learning Apps highly recommended, easy to use and exercises look really good
Web Sequitur & Web Rhubarb [download] (demo version is free)	Edmodo - you can create quizzes for your classes and see students' results. This can be done only once you create a teacher's account and create your own class there
Quandary  [download] There is a detailed tutorial above	More optional tools for those who want to experiment more:
Eclipse Crossword [download] - great for printed worksheets, yet you can also create html exercises.	Educaplay It is very easy to create exercises here, just view some samples in their gallery and start your own. Their video quizzes are worth watching.
	Quizstar you can create online quizzes for your students, these will be automatically graded
	Quizlet - you can use a large database of activities or create your own
	PhotoPeach quizzes
	Kubbu
Online worksheets
No registration needed	Registration needed
Tools for Educators	Worksheet Wizard
Online Surveys and Poll creators
No registration needed	Registration needed
Google account holders can create easy surveys through their Drive - you need to create a Form, as it is called in Google.	SurveyMonkey the best tool for your surveys
	Edmodo - you can create polls for your classes once you create a teacher's account
	Micropoll
	Survey tools - a selection of 9 tools
	Surveys and polls - a selection of 10 tools

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-check I have.... explored at least one tool (interactive exercise, worksheet or survey) created at least one activity with one of these tools and posted the activity link to the Participants' Production Page and in my blog/wiki commented on exercises or quizzes of other participants in the Participants' Production Page  commented on the readings using the Edmodo Group raised all questions I wanted to during our Big Marker session

 

 

To get a badge for this week, you need to

• create at least one exercise using one of the tools suggested and place it in your blog or wiki
• create one survey and place it in your blog or wiki
• Please remember to place all the links to the Participants' Production Page
• Create a quiz or poll in Edmodo 

 

 

 

Suggested readings - if you want to send us your reading comments, please do it through this link only.

 

• Assessment for learning: Improving feedback in interactive exercises. Mar. 2011. (Based on HotPot exos.)

 

• Babicka, B. and Nevaril, J. (2008). Hot Potatoes - How Not to Get Burnt.  (Interesting hints on the usage of Hot Potatoes. After opening the file, click on the text to enlarge it.)

 

• Computer-based language learning with interactive web exercises (2011). (Mainly based on Hot Potatoes; presentations at an Italian Conf.: ICT for Language Learning, Oct. 2011)

 

A short note: HotPotatoes terms of use have changed:

"Hot Potatoes is now freeware. The complete version of the programs is now available for free, from the Downloads section . The free version of Hot Potatoes for Windows is version 6.3, and the Java version is 6.1."
"The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project you like. It is not open-source."

 

• Torres, Isabel Perez (2003). Creating Materials Online with Free Teacher Tools. TESOL Spain, Newsletter 2003.

(This article focuses on this utility of the Internet. Some sites are presented where teachers can easily design activities and exercises online, such as quizzes, tests, puzzles or surveys, which require no advanced computer skills. Included are only those tools that are free for educational use for obvious reasons.)

 

A short note:

2 of the sites mentioned in the article no longer exist; one is Headline Makers:  lang.swarthmore.edu/makers/index;

when you click on the link you get the message: The server at lang.swarthmore.edu is taking too long to respond.

You can find the old site here and a new one here

 

The other is Trackstar; the link takes us to a site about Online Casino and Gambling; the present site is:

http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/index.jsp

 

• What are authoring tools for MFL? (2005) (An interesting article about Authoring tools. However, some of the software referred to is not free.)

 

Looking for more inspiration?

• http://www.edhelper.com/vocabulary.htm
• http://elllo.org/ - Very good for listening practice.
• http://www.digibridge.net/teresadeca/school/activities.htm - Teresa's Web-based Activities