Hot Potatoes Starter

Hot Potatoes are perhaps the oldest living and upgraded, free authoring software for making interactive exercises. It offers five types of tasks: multiple choice, gapfill, matching, crossword and jumbled letters/words/sentences.

Remember!
When working with HP, you enter information into a “T’s Book” – a file with the extension .j** (.jcl. jmt…)
After finishing the exercise, you EXPORT it into html (“S’s book”). The names of the files should be identical, apart from the extension.
HotPot software does not recognise subfolders. All HotPot files AND all used images must be in the same folder


TASK 1
Choose a target age group and a topic for your own HotPot project – preferably a vocabulary field, which is taught at basic schools. Write your choice into the comment to this blog – each student must have an unique topic.
List ten vocabulary items (NOT proper names!) belonging to the chosen field – these you will present and practice in ALL THREE of your HotPot exercises.

Example:
endangered animals: snow leopard, elephant, lowland gorilla, vari, Comodo dragon... etc.


TASK 2
Use the web and find illustrations to the ten words you have chosen - the images should be in jpg format, between 10-20 kilobytes. Save them into a folder "HotPot" you create in your flashdisc.
SAVE the Urls of pages you use for downloading pictures! You will publish them as references.

TASK 3
Start working on a matching exercise, presenting the meaning of the ten words you have chosen, through the pictures. Use images of cca 20-40K size, approx. 100*100 pixels, all the same format!


Learning objectives - In this seminar you should learn how to:
- create a matching exercise in HP, save, export into html
- modify the colours of HP exercises
- insert images into HP exercises, set their size and position
- add and/or modify prompts and feedback in HP exercises
- set the timer, shuffle questions, show a limited number of questions in HP exercises

Your Brand New Web Site

Today you should start your brand new personal web site. Your own web space serves as a presentation of your individual achievements, as well as the place to upload and publish your projects.
First, read all the tasks, listed below; you can fulfill them in random order.

If in doubt, do not hesitate to ask!

1. Draw the structure of your future web on a sheet of paper. Check the credit requirements on the English Dept. web page to get an idea what the compulsory parts are.

2. Open Notepad (Poznamkovy blok) and write the text you would like to publish in your site. Start with the content of the index page - the first page the user will see. Keep the Internet Safety Rules in mind – do not publish your personal data (the date of birth, phone number, credit card numbers …)

3. Open the WYSIWYG web editor New View (nvu.exe) and explore the possibilities of the software.
Above all, learn how to:

• - modify colours
• - insert images
• - organise the page content using frames (tables)
• - insert links into text and images

Of course there are more elegant ways of editing, but our main aim is to understand the principles of web creation. If you are safe in this field, feel free to apply your creativity and do more!

4. Start new web at webzdarma.cz and upload your files (index.html, images...)

5. Publish the URL of your new web as a comment to this blog. :)


HOMEWORK:
Bring an English textbook (basic school level)  for the next lesson.


Do not forget our three main rules:

1. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE (and upload)
2. NO DIACRITICS, NO SPACES IN FILENAMES
3. ALL-IN-ONE (folder, od course)

...AND MORE:
Ideas and instructions on web page creation: http://www.jakpsatweb.cz/
Musing about your web colours? Read this for inspiration.



Image source

Introduction

What are your expectations?
Write your ideas into the comment to this blog entry. Do not forget to sign your text.

Your First Project

The first credit project seems to be very easy - but it requires some long-term effort, too!

You will start a blog - anywhere, in Czech or in English - and will keep it alive for one semester. The minimum of five entries is required, spread within at least two months.

Do not try to write long texts into your blogs! A short, interesting, well-expressed entry is more valuable.

You can find lots of examples of good blogs online. The most valued usually present some interesting experience or well-argumented opinions.

This one is my favourite - even if it is not actually called a blog :)

My personal and very occassional blog you may find here.

... And do not forget about the graphics - you should also add photos or illustrations to your blog, to make it more attractive.

TASK 1 - Blog

Start a blog, and enter its URL into the comment to this blog.

Homework: Make a suitable photo and add it to your blog.

TASK 2 - Hotkeys

Go to http://pcskills.capsa.cz/

Download the file Hotkeys_Task.doc

Find out how to use the listed hotkeys :)

TASK 3 - Using Word

Download the file Word_Task.doc form capsa.

Find out whether you really know how to work with WORD!