We've used and taught Hot Potatoes for quite a while now. We've watched it continue to grow in features. It is always amazing to us the number of people who have not yet discovered Hot Potatoes. It is a wonderful product for use by both students and teachers. Educators may use it for free as long as they are willing to share. Through the generous efforts of individuals at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, Hot Potatoes is available for download at: http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/

What is a Hot Potatoes? It's a wonderful collection of tools that allows anyone to produce interactive exercises. They have a crossword puzzle maker, a cloze procedure (fill-in-the blanks), a matching question maker, a multiple choice or short answer test, and a jumbled sentence exercise. Files created by Hot Potatoes can be exported to the web. The software allows for the creation of timed exercises, links to other content material, etc. Read more at their website. I'm not doing it justice here.
 
To assist our current students who are just learning how to use Hot Potatoes, we are posting some simple "how-to" movies. This collection will continue to grow over the next couple of weeks. You'll also see examples (to be posted) of how the files produced with Hot Potatoes work beautifully with eZediaQTI.

The "how-to" movies are in Flash format. I have them in QuickTime and AVI if you need them. Space limitations limit me from posting all the resources that have been created. Feel free to e-mail me, though, if you need the others and are not using them in a commercial use.

Note: I recommend to fellow teachers that they keep their files organized in folders. Here's a webpage with the steps on how to create folders in Windows XP.

The Crossword In Hot Potatoes - JCross
Note: I like to use a simple word processing file to have the words and clues ready to go so they can be copied and pasted into JCross.

• Changing the grid size for your crossword puzzle
• Using the Automatic Grid feature to simply enter your words and organize them for you
• Adding clues to the words in your crossword puzzle
• Saving your working file as a JCross file
• Configuring the output for your puzzle
• Exporting your JCross file as a webpage
• Viewing and using your exported crossword in a web browser

The Matching Question in Hot Potatoes - JMatch

• Simple matching exercise exported as a standard webpage
• Simple matching exercise exported as a drag and drop webpage

The Multiple Choice in Hot Potatoes - JQuiz

• Short example showing how the multiple choice question is constructed and how it operates in the browser

JCloze

• Using JCloze to create a fill-in-the-blanks exercise where you determine the position of the blanks
• Using JClose to create a fill-in-the-blanks exercise where JCloze automatically removes the words and creates the hints

Teaching Information

• What is the cloze procedure?
• How to you use it with silent reading exercises?
• How to use it with reading material the students know
• A cloze & choral reading connection for teachers that incorporates technology