JClic (http://clic.xtec.net/en) is a free (under the GPL license, more about this in Chapter 8, Common Multimedia Issues in Moodle) software application released by the Ministry of Education of the Government of Catalunya. It is written in Java, and allows us to create the following seven types of interactive activities:
- Association games: They are used to identify the relationship between two groups of data
- Memory games: They are used to discover hidden pairs of elements
- Exploring, Identifying, and Information games: They start with initial information, and the user has to choose paths to the answer
- Puzzles: They are used to order graphics, text, and audio, or to combine graphics and audio
- Written answers: They are used to write text, a word, or a sentence
- Text activities: They are used to solve exercises based on words, sentences, letters, and paragraphs (these can be completed, corrected, or ordered)
- Word searches and crosswords: They are used to find hidden words or solve crossword puzzles
JClic exercises can be more visually appealing than Hot Potatoes, as we will see, and can be particularly useful for younger students. But, as they require Java, this should be checked with the ICT coordinator as Java must be installed on the schools' PCs.
In the software download area (http://clic.xtec.cat/en/jclic/download.htm), we can download JClic author
, the application that allows us to create these activities. The file will use WebStart, and will run from a single file, named jclic.jnlp. When we run it for the first time, in Microsoft Vista at least, we will need to give permission for the application to run (selecting the Always trust content from this publisher option will avoid having to perform this step every time we start JClic):
Then JClic will start loading:
The interface of JClic author is as shown in the following screenshot:
As it can be seen, there are four available tabs:
- Project: It is the default tab, which allows us to define some details of the project.
- Media library: It is where pictures and other multimedia are managed.
- Activities: It is where the project activities are created or modified. This tab further contains four tabs.
- Sequences: where we can sequence several activities in the same project.
The options inside these tabs will be available only after we create a new project.
The first step in building interactive JClic activities is to start a new project (by navigating to File | New project).
We should then define:
- The name of the project
- The name of the file in which the project will be saved (having a double extension of
.jclic.zip) - The default folder for saving the files
The name of the default folder is same as the name of your project, and is located at the following location:
C:/Programme Files/JClic/projects(in Windows)$home/JClic/projects(in other OS)
We can change the default folder location, and if we are using multimedia files, we should keep everything organized inside that folder.
We are now ready to start creating our first activity, a puzzle. In Module 2, A world of music, we can pick some of the pictures of instruments that our students gathered in the Instrument Mappers activities and create a jigsaw puzzle as part of a final game for the module. We will perform the following steps:
Note that, we are starting from the tab on the left and moving to the right as we configure the activity.
As an example, I created a project called Instruments:
Next, I added a description of the activity and specified myself as an author by clicking on the + button. We can specify more details, but for now this much information is enough as an example.
Now, let's import a picture in the Media library tab by clicking on the icon on the far left on the toolbar:
If we pick a picture from any folder on our computer, JClic will recommend that this be copied to the project folder (we should accept this recommendation, especially if we want to upload our activity to Moodle).
Note that, the Media library accepts different kinds of multimedia files, from MP3 to Flash, and Video. This can be useful in other types of activities.
We now have a picture of a lamelaphone that will make a difficult jigsaw for our students.
Lamelaphone image source: Weeks, Alex (2006). Mbira dzavadzimu 1.jpg. Retrieved October 12, 2008, from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mbira_dzavadzimu_1.jpg
The next step is to add the puzzle activity, in the Activities tab, by clicking on the icon on the far left of the toolbar.
A dialog box is displayed, and in this menu we should select the Exchange puzzle option and enter a name for our puzzle in the input field at the bottom of the dialog box.
We can then add a description for the activity, and if needed we can define a timer countdown (in the Counters section), among other options.
In the Window tab under the the Activities tab, we can also define some color options, as shown in the following screenshot:
In the Messages tab, we can add an initial message, which for example, gives the context of the activity, and a final message as feedback for the exercise, by clicking on the dark gray areas.
Finally, in the Panel tab, we should insert the lamelaphone's picture from our Media library and define the kind of jigsaw that we want. In the next screenshot, I have done the following three things:
- Selected a jigsaw with curved unions.
- Defined 5 × 5 pieces.
- Selected an image from the Media library.
Our puzzle activity is now ready, and we can now add a finding pairs activity to the same project, in a sequence.
Finding pairs activities (where students have to locate pairs of similar pictures or in ear training exercises) can be interesting for memory exercises, and in our course in particular. In this example, students have to pick pairs of sounds with the same note from different world instruments.
After adding a new finding pairs activity (using the same process that we saw previously for the puzzle), we should add MP3 files of the instrument sounds to our Media library. After this, in the Panel tab we can define the size of the grid (in this case a 3 x 3 grid) and then start associating the MP3 files to each cell in the grid. To do this, carry out the following steps:
- Click on one of the cells of the grid.
- In the pop-up window, click on the Active content button (similarly, if we wanted to add images, we would use the Image button instead).
- In the pop-up window, click on the Play sound button and then select the sound file from the Media library.
- Click on the OK button.
- In the textbox, add the letter of the note, just as a reference that this cell has been populated (we will delete this reference in step 7. We need to do this because we are dealing with sounds in this edit mode. With images or text it would be easier as we would have a visual reference).
- Click on the OK button.
- Remove the reference text in the textboxes for all of the rectangles.
Now, in the Layout tab, choose the position of the pair of this grid (the one that we edited is grid A; this can appear on the left, right, top, or bottom of the automatically created grid B). Students will have to connect an element on one grid with the similar element on the other grid.
Finally, we will need to sequence the activities that we have just created. In the Sequences tab, if we click on the play button, we will see a preview of the selected activity. The activity will be added automatically to the sequence list.
Note that, we can either show or hide the navigation buttons in our sequence by using the options in the right-hand pane.
We can add more activities to the sequence by clicking on the button on the far left of the toolbar.
We are now ready to publish the project and add it to Moodle.
To publish the activity as a Web page, we just need to navigate to Tools | Create web page…. In the configuration window that is displayed, we just need to click on OK and then Save.
As a result, we will have an index.htm file and a .jclic.zip file, both ready to be uploaded to Moodle.
In Moodle, we can now add a resource, which is a link to a file or website, and upload both the files, index.htm and instruments.jclic.zip to the course files (we don't need to upload these files to the same folder). This resource should point to the index.htm file.
And the final result is as shown in the following screenshot:
We can also design an activity where a group of students can create games like these for each other.