| Module 4 | The Creation of Educational Activities using JClic
| Practice session |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | Exercises |

| Text: fill-in blanks (II)
| In this practice session you are going to create two fill-in blanks text activities. The difference to the one you did in the previous practice session is the way the unknown elements are presented. Last time the user had to write words into the gaps, but this time the pupil will have to choose from a dropdown list or there will be some initial sentences that he/she will have to correct. You will also practice giving help associated to the unknown elements.
| Open the project module4.jclic.zip which you saved in the previous session. Create a fill-in blanks text activity and call it: Fill-in blanks froma list. Use a text taken directly from a webpage . Without leaving JClic author, use your browser to go to the following webpage: http://www.xtec.net/rtee/eng/tutorial/meto.htm Choose the first two paragraphs and press the combination Control+C. Return to JClic author (closing the browser). Introduce this text into the activity you have just created by pressing on the combination Control+V. Select the word teacher in the second line and press the button . in the dialogue box over the unknown element, activate Show a list of options. To enter the words that will be seen in the dropdown list you must click on the button and write a word e.g. pupil, after placing the cursor inside the box. After pressing OK write the following word and so on (usually about 3 or 4) remembering to also insert the word which gives the correct answer. The remaining buttons have the following functions:
| Eliminate a selected element from the list
| Modify the content of the selected element
| Move an element up or down on the dropdown list
The order of the list is the same as will appear in the exercise. There is no automatic mixing of elements. Select the following words from the text and insert the elements in the list: motivation (disillusion, motivation, distract, charm), status (culture, sanity, knowledge, status) and attention (concentration, absorbtion, immersion, attention). Don´t forget to activate Show a list of options for each unknown element. If you make a mistake anywhere you can always edit the content of an unknown element by placing the cursor on it and clicking on . Test the activity using . Open the dropdown list for each of the gaps. Select wrong answers to see what happens. Return to JClic author, go to the button and apply font size 16. Resize the window to eliminate the displacement bar as you did in the last session. Try out the activity again because sometimes eliminating the displacement bar in JClic author doesn't coordinate completely with the visualization in JClic. Make a background screen (tab Window) and the messages you want to add. Save the project module4.jclic.zip. Create another activity using the button . Call it: Fill-in blanks using clues Copy the following text (translated from Catalan), from http://www.edu365.com/diariescola/ (Vilaweb, independent electronic newspaper . 25th September 2004:
How are they formed ? The formation of a hurricane depends on at least five factors: warm sea surface temperatures, an invasion of cold air in the higher layers of the Earth´s atmosphere, great humidity, warm winds aloft and a pre-existing storm. These factors are found in tropical zones, where the combination of them can magnify the storm which in turn moves in circles and can reach gigantic dimensions. The Earth´s rotation causes the whirlwind.
Before choosing unknown elements, insert a picture to illustrate the text. From the Media Library, add the image which you have in the folder files, with the name hurricane.png. You will be reminded that you have it outside the folder and you will be asked to confirm that you wish to copy it into your work folder. You must press OK. Place the cursor in front of the whole text and press Return. From the tab Content, click on the button insert cell . Using the image button look for the file hurricane.png. Given that this is a box within a text activity (which is also in a box), resizing cannot be done by dragging the outer edges. You must resize using the numerical values for the height and width in pixels. You can get this information by going to the Media Library and selecting the image where it is shown. In this case, enter the values 340 and 270. However, if you think the image is too big, you can drag the lower righthand side to make it smaller. At the moment, JClic author only allows you use this technique to reduce the size of the cells.To enlarge them you must write in the numerical values. Go back to the text and select the word hurricane as an unknown element. In the section Pop up, open the dropdown and choose Pop up automatically. Click on the box. In the text content write: tropical cyclone with winds of over 118 kilometers per hour usually accompanied by rain, thunder and lightning. Apply the style: background colour (light yellow) font size (18). When you press OK you will see that the box is too small for the text. Drag the sides of the box to enlarge it. Accept and try out the activity. Obviously, as you haven´t changed the style of the main text, this is quite ugly. If the style for the clues is size 18, the main style has to be the same or bigger. Return to the text and select the word tropical as the unknown element. Introduce a dropdown list which contains: mediterranean, tropical, continental. In the section Pop up choose Pop up in errors. Write the text: of, occurring in or characteristic of the Tropics. Style the box. Style the main text and the unknown elements from the tab Style. Test the activity and save in module4.jclic.zip. Now use this same activity to make one for gap filling with an initial expression which the pupil has to correct. Select the previous activity (filling in gaps using clues), click on the Copy button then on Paste. You can see that an identical activity has been created under the name Filling in gaps using clues 2. From the tab Options, click on the button to change the name of the activity. Call it Fill-in blanks for correcting. Press OK Go to the tab Text. The text about the hurricane is here. Place the cursor on the word hurricane and click on the button . Answer Yes to the question you will be asked. The unknown elements in this activity will be all the words which are spelt incorrectly The first word is hurricane. Select it and, in the dialogue box, write the word incorrectly as the Initial Text. Do the same for all the words you choose to be written incorrectly. Style the main text and the inknown elements. Add the initial message giving instructions on how the exercise is to be done. Try out the activity and save the project module4.jclic.zip.
| In the last activity you have just designed, Fill-in blanks for correcting, you can use the option Maximum length to enter a larger amount of characters than the word to be corrected has got. This allows the word to be written next to the incorrectly spelt one, which can be deleted afterwards. If the word is already the maximum length, you will have to indicate which one has to be deleted.