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Write your own Tests and Exercises

The self-assessment tests on this site are written in Hot Potatoes software, which is free for non-commercial use and can be downloaded from http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/. 

You can write

• Multiple-choice tests
• Short answer tests
• Tests where students match items by choosing from a drop-down list
• Reorder words in a sentence to put them in the correct sequence
• Gap-fill exercises
• Crosswords

The software is very easy to use and requires to web authoring experience to write.  If you do not know how to link it to your intranet (assuming you've got one!) you can simply hand the web files to them when you've finished.  The files are very small and easily transferable on an ordinary floppy disk.  Free provided you put a copy on the internet. You can buy a site licence for an intranet, but this is naturally pricier.

The tests provide facilities for giving students a score, and providing them with feedback.

The tests can be written to run on recent and older browsers.

Hot Potatoes also publishes Quandary, which is the software used for the decision-making exercises. Quandary is shareware. You can buy individual or site licenses to create your own exercises.

The word searches here are written in Java (not by me!) and the software for this is donated by Mike Hall, www.brainjar.com. All you need to do to write them yourself is to change a plain text file in something like Notepad and double click on the Java applet on your web page to choose the appropriate file and to change the colour scheme. Once you've done one, it's incredibly easy and quick to adapt them. Students love them, but are much faster than I am. They are timed, so a student can always compete against him/herself to try to beat their own time.  Free for non-profit-making purposes.

This written in Javascript by Michael Rottmeier, and works by you designing a particular game from a web page you download.  You set options and include words (and hints if you want them). You can customise the appearance. The program is fiddlier to use than the others mentioned here, and it is more time-consuming than the Word Searches or Hot Potatoes tests. Can be time-consuming to undo mistakes, as saving is very complicated. However, they are fun for students. If you have access to a bookable computer suite or have a computer projector, these and the Word Searches can be used with whole groups of students as a fun activity. This is definitely a game, but a learning game. You can get the Hangman Creator at:

http://www.teaching-tools.de.vu

These are written in Flash, and involve a steeper learning curve, and a willingness to put in some serious time to learn some basic programming skills.

These are written in Flash, and are adapted from a template from Dennie Hooper of http://clear.msu.edu,for which I am grateful, and which is free for non-commercial use.