Hot Potatoes

Hot Potatoes

          Hi, guys, back with me again since I have disappeared for around 2 weeks. Now, in this chance, I am going to write a blog post about hot potatoes. Do you guys ever hear that name? Let’s check this out!

Yeah, if we translate it into Indonesia, it will become “kentang - kentang panas”. Unfortunately, it is not about “kentang - kentang panas”. Hot potatoes is a software suite that includes five applications that can create exercises for the World Wide Web. The applications are JCloze, JCross, JMatch, JMix and JQuiz. There is also a sixth application called The Masher that will compile all the Hot Potatoes exercises into one unit. Hot Potatoes was created by the Research and Development team at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre. Commercial aspects of the software are handled by Half-Baked Software Inc. Hot Potatoes has been freeware since October 2009. Hot Potatoes was first released in version 2.0 in September 1998, at the EuroCALL conference in Leuven, Belgium. The steps to make exercise using hot potatoes are very easy.

The steps are:

1.   Open your internet application (Mozilla, Chrome, Flock, etc).

2.  Open www.google.com

3.  Type “hot potatoes” as your keyword.

4.  Choose the first order. (or simply open https://hotpot.uvic.ca/)

5.  Find the download table.

6.  Click 1 which is suitable with your operation system (windows / linux / mac OS).

7.  Wait until the download process is done.

8.  Open the downloaded file (application file).

9.  Follow the step to download hot potatoes in your laptop.

10. Launch hot potatoes.

11.  Type the username.

12. Choose one that you want to use for making exercises (JCloze, JCross, JMatch, JMix or JQuiz).

13. Create the questions, and the answers based on the technique you chose before.

14. If it is done, save it by choosing the type of the file (.jmt or .htm).

15. .jmt is for the file that still can be edited.

16. .htm is for the file that can be shown in web or internet to be played or to be done by the students.

These are the steps to save the file in .jmt, and .htm:

·         Example.jmt

1.     Choose the “save” picture which is the same with the one in Microsoft word, excel, and even power point.

2.    Type the name of the file.

3.    Choose the location where you want to save it to.

4.    Click “save”.

·         Example.htm

1.     Choose the logo below.

2.    Type the name of the file.

3.    Choose the location where you want to save it to.

4.    Click “save”.

After you save the file in .htm, you can have a look the preview of your exercise by opening it in your internet application.

For the benefit of using this application is that this application has had complete technique of exercises (multiple choice, crossword, fill the blanks, and also jumbled sentence). In my opinion, this application is also a bit easier than the one that I posted before this post (kahoot, socrative, and quizziz). Why it is easier is because in using hot potatoes, we just need the internet connection for a while. It is not like kahoot / socrative / quizziz where we use internet connection in all the process. Meanwhile, in hot potatoes, we just need internet connection for downloading the application file, and then we can download and finally use it without any internet connection. Yeah, as we know, sometimes, using internet connection is annoying because sometimes the connection can be getting low. Besides, this application can also be used for all grades.

For the weakness of using this application is that the tools are not clear enough. For example when we want to save our file in .htm, the tool is different with the one when we want to save in .jmt. However, for the other things, I do not find any weaknesses on them. It is such a good application for teachers when they want to give their students other way of exercises.

Of course, in the future, I will this application to teach and to give my students various types of exercises. I think, this application will be very useful in teaching vocabulary to students, starting from very easy vocabularies, up to the most difficult one.

Here are the examples of hot potatoes exercises:

Okay, I think it is enough about hot potatoes. Try those screenshots for real! Below are the links:

a)  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7lmCPcWN4uTODRIaFAtc0FRaXc

b) https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7lmCPcWN4uTMzZnZlhfWGx5ajA

c)  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7lmCPcWN4uTOFUyUHNoQ2s3NG8

For b and c, you can copy the content first, then paste it to notepad / Adobe Dreamweaver / whatever website application. And then, save it, and finally play it!

Thank you, and Jesus bless you abundantly!

ONLINE QUIZ

Bible Quiz

Hello, readers. I would like to write my 5^th post about online quiz. In this chance, I chose kahoot as the online quiz-generating site. Okay, let’s start!

As I mentioned before, I chose to use kahoot as my quiz-generating site. Kahoot is a collection of questions on specific topics. Created by teachers, students, business-people and social users, they are asked in real-time, to an unlimited number of “players”, creating a social, fun and game-like learning environment. How to make kahoot will be mentioned below:

1.   Open your internet application (Mozilla, Chrome, Flock, etc).

2.  Type www.kahoot.com

3.  Click “enter”, and it will enter to kahoot homepage.

4.  Choose “Sign Up” if you do not have an account, and “Sign in” if you have already had an account.

5.  Choose “As a Teacher”.

6.  Choose “Sign Up with Google”.

7.  Choose the email that will be used for Kahoot, and it will enter to kahoot account home screen.

8.  Choose “My Kahoot”.

9.  Choose one technique you want to use (Quiz, Jumble, Discussion, or Survey). Here, I chose Quiz.

10. Fill the title, description, language, audience, credit resources, and intro video (if there is any).

11.  Then, choose “Ok, Go”.

12. Choose “add question”, then type the question, and the multiple choices.

13. You can add a video or a picture if you have by uploading it.

14. If you have done with the questions, choose “Save”.

15. Thus, the quiz has been made. You can edit, preview, play, or even share it.

The benefits of using free online quiz maker is that we will not make our students feel bored in doing the test because by using online quiz, the students do not need to write more. Moreover, they can know the result directly after finishing the quiz. It is also very good for the teacher since the teacher does not need to correct or check the students’ works one by one. It is very tiring and boring, isn’t it? Hahaha.

The weakness of using online quiz is that we might make the students become lazy because they do not write anymore. From the physic thing is that online quiz needs internet as the “fuel”. However, as we know that we cannot keep it well. Connection becomes the first problem when we are using online quiz. So, make sure that our connection to the “beloved” internet is good enough for doing the quiz and/or test. For kahoot itself, I think the weakness is that kahoot does not have a complete quiz technique.

Other ideas how I will use online quiz in language classroom is that I will give my students the explanations of certain materials by online quiz. I also can use online quiz to do a pre test for the students in the beginning of the semester to measure their skill (in grammar / vocabulary / reading / listening / speaking / writing). I can also use online quiz for giving the students post test after they learnt something.

Yeah, I think that’s all what I can share about using online quiz, especially kahoot because I used kahoot for my example.

Here is my online quiz example from www.kahoot.com:

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/1ffcad57-c1f7-46db-8d21-78578e8987f2

The website of the story:

http://www.storynory.com/2006/05/27/creation-and-adam-and-eve/

          Thank you, happy trying, and Jesus bless you all!

Jamie Keddie’s Videotelling for Video Analysis Activities

Jamie Keddie’s Videotelling for Video Analysis Activities

          Hi, guys, back with me again in my 4^th post in this blog. In this post, I am going to write about 1 website which is useful for video analysis activities for students (especially for my future students). Okay, check this out!

          Here, from the websites choice given to me, I decided to choose 1 which is Jamie Keddie’s Videotelling. The website is http://lessonstream.org/topic/animals-pets/. This website is very useful for teaching especially when we want to use video as our media in teaching. The steps to use this website are:

1.   Open your internet application (can be Mozilla / Chrome / Flock, etc).

2.  Type the website above.

3.  Click “enter”.

4.  Choose which video do you want to use based on your teaching topic or theme, and also based on your students’ level.

5.  Click the chosen video.

6.  There will be a video to be shown, and there will be the activities to be done.

The reason why I choose this website is that the website is very easy to use, but still useful. There are lots of videos, and each video has its own level of the students (beginner, intermediate, teens, and adults). The benefits of using the website is that we do not need to think for the exercise anymore because there have been the exercise that can be used for the students. However, we as the teacher are still allowed to make or create our own exercise related to the video, topic, and theme.

Honestly, I do not find any weakness of this website. Why? Because I think, this website has been very good for teaching. The website has also been completed by many things related to teaching English, such as grammar, vocabulary, and so on. The website also has a lot of topics that we usually use for teaching English. So, we can easily choose the topic, and then we will get the video(s) and the exercise(s).

Of course, I will use this website for teaching my future students (either school students or private students). I will use this website for teaching when I teach something new, and when I do not want to make my students bored because of the flat teaching method (just looking at the whiteboard, writing what the work is, doing the work as well, then done). Maybe, I will use this website most in teaching grammar, because I very like grammarJ. Besides, grammar has so many categories like tenses, conditional sentences, passive voices, causative have, and etc.

Okay, I think that’s all about my website choice to teach my future students.

If you have different suggestion(s) or opinions, just comment on the box below.

Thank you and happy reading and trying!

Quizlet Interactive Vocabulary Tool

QUIZLET

Quizlet is a mobile & web-based study application used by 1-in-2 high school students and 1-in-3 college students in the United States. It was created by Andrew Sutherland in October 2005 and released to the public in January 2007. Quizlet trains students via flashcards and various games and tests. As of August 2017, Quizlet has over 140 million user-generated flashcard sets and more than 20 million active learners. It now ranks among the top 50 websites in the U.S. In 2016, Quizlet was recognized by Similar Web as the fastest growing US Education site in 2015. Quizlet holds annual language competitions in French, German and Spanish.

Using Quizlet as learning media has some benefits. Quizlet has so many ways of learning (such as flashcards, write, spell, test, match, and gravity). Those ways of learning will not make us boring when we learn something through Quizlet. Instead of making us boring to learn something, Quizlet will be more fun for us when learning something because we do not just see a task which is full of letters, no pictures, no graphic at all. Meanwhile in Quizlet, we can see pictures, and various ways of learning (not just answering the question written by writing on the workbook).

Somehow, everything has its own strength and weakness. It also occurs to Quizlet as well. So far, the weakness of Quizlet is about the list of definitions. There are some vocabularies that the definitions are not available in Quizlet (such as “drum’s tom, filler keyboard”, and etc). However, it does not mean that Quizlet is not useful at all for learning process. It is still helpful especially for the teacher in teaching something new to the students in the fun way.

In my opinion, I will use this Quizlet in my class later when having a quiz or a test of certain topic. I will let the students study first, and then I will ask them to close their books, and keep it away from their table. Next, I will let them to sit silently. I will open the Quizlet (maybe I will use flash card). I will ask them to write the answer on their test paper based on the flashcard that I will display. However, I will give time for them to answer each picture and/or explanation displayed.

I think that’s all about Quizlet. In summary, Quizlet is very useful, especially when you want to teach new vocabularies to your students. It is much better and more fun if you use this Quizlet as your media of teaching those new vocabularies.

Thank you for reading, leave your comment below! Your comments are very useful for me to be better and better again.

                           

Happy reading, and trying and Jesus bless you!

Now, let’s try this one!

This is about parts of computer.

Try it, and get new knowledge from it!!!

My Quizlet Example: