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!