Now that we have seen all the options available in QuizPort, we are going to create one. First, we will need to create some activities to insert into the test. We will use Hot Potatoes to create the test activities for our QuizPort.
If you are unfamiliar with Hot Potatoes, go to their website at http://hotpot.uvic.ca/ where you will be able to read through the information related to the software and download the newest version. Hot Potatoes is now freeware and the current version is 6.3. This is likely to be the last version since they are no longer developing or supporting Hot Potatoes and it is not open source. Once you have it installed and opened the package, you will see an image of a pile of potatoes on one side and one big potato about to get squished on the other. Each of the potatoes offers a different activity type to work with. The five quiz types available in HotPot are JCloze, JCross, JMatch, JMix, and JQuiz.
- JCloze—This item type allows you to create gap-fill activities.
- JCross—This option allows for the creation of crossword puzzles.
- JMatch—This allows you to create matching items.
- JMix—This item allows the creation of jumbled word or sentence items. It has two settings, drag-and-drop and standard.
- JQuiz—This item type allows you to create Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Multi-Select, and Hybrid Items.
There is one additional feature called The Masher. To use The Masher, you need to click on the large potato on the right. The Masher is how you take all the items and mash them together into a unit.
There is a lot you can do with Hot Potatoes, so I recommend you get it and start to play around with it and see how you feel using it. There is a discussion forum in Moodle related to QuizPort and Hot Potatoes. It is found at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=1599.
For our QuizPort, we will create one JCloze, one JMatching, and one JQuiz.