Lesson 1: Introduction
Welcome to the Hot Potatoes Tutorial!
What is Hot Potatoes? Well, since you asked, Hot Potatoes is an OS9 Classic application that enables you to create interactive web-based teaching exercises for your students and classes. These exercises can be delivered to any Internet-connected computer equipped with a browser.
This web-based presentation will introduce the six main exercise-types produced by the Hot Potatoes program and take you through the basic steps involved in creating an interactive exercise. These exercises use JavaScript for interactivity, and will work in Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer versions 4 and above on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. Two of the tools, JMatch and JMix, can also produce dynamic HTML drag-and-drop exercises, but these will only work with more recent browsers. These programs are designed so that almost every aspect of the pages can be customized, so if you do know HTML or JavaScript, you can make almost any change you want to the way the exercises work or to the format of the Web pages.
If the last paragraph scares you because you don't know what that means, don't worry! The exercises use HTML and JavaScript to implement their interactivity, but you do NOT need to know anything about these languages in order to use the programs. All you need to do is enter the data for your exercises (questions, answers, responses etc.) and press a button. The program will create the web pages for you so that you can post them on your web site! If you do not have a web site yet, you can also share them with students by placing them in your Virtual Share folder.
Assignment: Download and install
the software onto your computer Time: 30 minutes |
Step 1: Check your browser
Click on the button below to check that your browser is ready.
Go to the Hot Potatoes web site (click on the link below)
and download the Hot Potatoes software (4.0 MB). The Macintosh version is listed in the older versions section.
Once downloaded, find the compressed file MacHotPot53.sea (probably in your downloads folder or on your desktop) and double-click it to install the program onto your computer. Save the file as Hot Potatoes in a location where you will remember its location. The program will extract (unstuff) in the location you designated and give you a message that the process was successful.
Step 3: Open Hot Potatoes!
Open the Hot Potatoes folder and open the file named Hot Potatoes. (Note: Once you have verified that the program is on your computer, you can throw away the file MacHotPot53.sea)
Step 4: Register Hot Potatoes Register your copy of Hot Potatoes to get the full version of the software.
When you receive the registration key via email, open Hot Potatoes and select Register from the Help menu (as shown on the right). Type in (or paste) the registration key to unlock all the features of the programs. |
Read
the licensing agreement (or at least click on the link!), check
the box stating you read the agreement, and fill in the requested
information. Use the email address that you use most frequently
because you will be emailed a registration code momentarily after
you press the submit button. (Because you work in a non-profit-making
educational institution and you will be sharing your exercises by
placing them on a publicly-accessible Web server, you may use the
Hot Potatoes suite free of charge.)Step 5: Create a data folder
Create a new folder on your desktop and name it Lastname_Exercises (my folder would be called tyler_exercises). When creating Hot Potatoes exercises, it is important that all exercises and any associated pictures, sounds, or videos making up a unit are contained in one folder. This tutorial will not go into detail about how to insert pictures, sounds, and video but the folder will make it easier for you to submit your assignments at the end.
Step 6: Let's get started!
We interrupt this lesson for a Public Service Announcement: "The following lessons and help features are based upon the tutorial and help options found in your Hot Potatoes folder. I have tried to provide you with instructions without bogging you down with too many details. As you become familiar with the software, I would strongly recommend that you view these features and learn more about the capabilities of this fantastic program!" We now return you to your regularly scheduled lesson.
Proceed to Lesson 2 - Creating a multiple-choice exercise using the JBC potato!