About Hot Potatoes

1
Integrating E-learning

• About Hot Potatoes

2
What is Hot Potatoes?

• Hot Potatoes was created by the Research and
  Development team at the University of Victoria
  Humanities Computing and Media Centre.
• The program enables you to create interactive
  multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence,
  crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill
  exercises. All the programs can have a reading
  text and timer included.
• Hot Potatoes is free of charge for publicly
  funded, non-profit, educational users who make
  their pages available on the web. Other users
  must pay for a licence.
• The LSDA is not endorsing Hot Potatoes, there are
  many other authoring tools available.

3
System/Module Requirements

• A minimum space on the hard drive/network of 35mb
• Windows 98/NT/2000/XP
• Internet connection
• An up-to-date browser eg
• Internet Explorer Version 6
• Netscape Version 7
• Microsoft Word

4
Why create your own interactive worksheets?

• Why spend hours creating interactive worksheets
  when you already have a bank of resources you can
  call upon?
• The main benefits to both learners and
  teacher/trainers are outlined in the following
  two slides, but imagine
• Never having to queue at the photocopier
• Always having the necessary worksheets for all
  your learners
• Being able to spend more time with the learners
  who need one-to-one help
• Having coloured worksheets actually displayed in
  colour
• Adding sound and image files to worksheets
• Of course, technology can fail and a lesson
  planned completely around online (or intranet)
  learning materials is never a wise idea but as a
  way of keeping the interest of a group of
  learners and meeting the needs of individuals,
  interactive worksheets are a resource to be taken
  advantage of.

5
Benefits to the learner

• The main difference between Hot Potatoes
  exercises and paper-based exercises is the
  immediate interactivity. For example, when using
  JQuiz, if you include useful, detailed feedback
  for every answer (correct and incorrect), then
  the learner not only has their existing knowledge
  tested but also learns as they work through the
  exercise. With a paper-based exercise they have
  to wait for for the teacher/trainer to mark it,
  (or check against a marking key). No
  teacher/trainer has the time to add helpful
  comments to all the correct and incorrect
  answers.
• Interactive
• Immediate feedback
• Can be repeated
• Independent learning
• Own pace/level
• Can be regarded as a fun way of learning

6
Benefits to the teacher/trainer

• Exercises created with Hot Potatoes have great
  potential for classroom or self-access use.
• Hot Potatoes is often purely seen as a program
  for the teacher/trainer to create learning
  materials, but it can also be used with the
  learners to involve them in creating exercises.
  This of course depends upon the level of the
  learners, but JCross is a good place to start.
• Can accommodate different levels within one
  teaching group
• Add variety to teaching/learning materials
• Can be created with a specific target group in
  mind
• Reduced marking
• Reduced photocopying
• Availability of resources
• The same exercise can be used for individual
  learning, pair working or group activities
• .

7
Design factors

• The IT skills of the learners must be taken into
  account eg in JMix exercises, clicking with the
  mouse is much simpler for a beginner than
  clicking and dragging. This does not mean you
  cannot use drag and drop exercises with IT
  beginners. Drag and drop exercises could be used
  for classroom activities where the learners call
  out the answers and the teacher/trainer completes
  the exercise. Learners could also work in pairs,
  with the more IT literate learner actually in the
  driving seat i.e. having control of the mouse.
• Use an appropriate font. Sans serif fonts eg
  Arial or Verdana increase legibility. You may
  wish to use Comic Sans so that the learners
  recognise letters such as a (a) easily. (The
  default font setting in Hot Potatoes is Arial 10)
• Use appropriate colours, i.e. high contrast such
  as black on a white background so that the text
  is clear. Do not use too many colours as the
  exercise becomes confusing.
• For dyslexic users use light pastel backgrounds,
  avoid pure white.
• Activity
• Follow these links to read further information on
  design factors
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?nametopic_accessi
  bility
• http//www.techdis.ac.uk/seven/papers/colour-contr
  ast7.html

8
Software download

• Activity
• 1 Arrange for your system administrator to
  download the program and install on your
  organisations network
• or
• 2 If you are installing the software on your own
  pc/laptop, establish a connection to the
  internet and click on the following link
• http//web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/index.htmdownloads
  
• Scroll down the page until you reach the
  Downloads section and click on the link to the
  the self-extracting, auto-installing zip file

9
Saving the download

• When the File Download window appears, click on
  Save

Save in a suitable folder on the hard drive.
(This example shows the file being saved in a
folder named downloads. You could save it in My
documents for example)
10
Software Installation

• The software begins to download
• When it has downloaded click on Open
• Follow the steps in the installation wizard to
  install the software.

11
Registration

• In order to use Hot Potatoes you need to register
  your details. Several features are disabled or
  restricted if you do not register. Registration
  also means you are informed on of any updates or
  problems with the program providing you do not
  deselect this option on the registration form.
• Activity
• Click on the following link and complete the
  registration form.
• http//web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/register.htm
• You will receive a registration key via email.

12
Do I Need a Licence?

• Hot Potatoes is free for use by non-profit making
  individuals or state funded educational
  institutions, on the condition that the material
  you produce using the program is freely available
  to anyone via the web. You need to purchase a
  licence if any of the following conditions apply
• You are working for a company or corporation.
• You are in business for yourself.
• You charge money for access to the material you
  make with Hot Potatoes.
• You do not make the material freely available
  through the web.
• Further information on licences can be found at
• http//www.halfbakedsoftware.com/hot_pot_licence.p
  hp
• Activity
• Read the FAQs sheet on Ferls website for further
  information
• http//ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page565

13
Registration

• Activity
• When you have received a registration key,
• load the Hot Potatoes program. Click on
• Help Register.
• Enter your User name and Key, in the
• Register window. Click on OK.

14
Additional Resources

• There is an online support group for users of Hot
  Potatoes. (If you are unfamiliar with using
  groups, you will find learner guides in the ICT
  Communications module on the CDRom). Click on
  the following link to access the group
• http//groups.yahoo.com/group/hotpotatoesusers/
• Sites with examples of Hot Potatoes
• http//www.ashcombe.surrey.sch.uk/Curriculum/maths
  /hotpot.htm - open
• http//www.weston.ac.uk/hotpotatoes/index.php
• http//atschool.eduweb.co.uk/rgshiwyc/Maths_HotPot
  /

15
Authoring Software

• There are many authoring programs available.
  Some are free, some have limited versions that
  are free and some require a licence. You may
  wish to check out the following websites
• http//www.questiontools.com/ (Includes a free
  version)
• http//www.greeneclipsesoftware.com/eclipsecrossw
  ord/download.html (Free)
• http//www.quia.com (Licence required)
• http//www.questionmark.com/us/home.htm
  (Licence required)
• http//www.coursegenie.com/ (Licence required)