Hot Potatoe

This week application was Hot Potatoe. This application was an online worksheet generator.

It is a freeware programme designed to enable those with no programming experience to create interactive web-based exercises. A range of question formats are available:

• multiple-choice
• fill-in-the-gap
• short-answer
• jumbled-sentence
• crossword-puzzle

I didn't think that this wasn't a bad application, but it wasn't a standout. I thought that while it was quite easy to use and quick to produce simple work sheets, but the worksheets weren't very engaging at all, for our digital students. I know that you can upload picture and fiddle around with presentation to help with this, but this makes it as time consuming as generating your own. And anyway most of what Hot potato does can be found at of site.

Here are some free worksheet sites, which I found in 5 min, that do most of the same stuff!

www.suelebeau.com/freetools.htm

www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/

http://school.discovery.com/teachingtools/worksheetgenerator/

http://quiz.4teachers.org/

http://www.worksheets4teachers.com/

http://school.discovery.com/teachingtools/worksheetgenerator/

Next I wasn't keen on the results side of the worksheet. OK it automatically marked the students' work, but you only got a final score or grade. I feel that this doesn't help you identify where the student may have gone wrong (weaknesses) or did well in (strengths). You could use this tool for any formative assessment, because it just doesn't provide you with enough information.



So would I use Hot Potato? I don't think so, there would have to be improvements on the feedback/result side of things, before I would consider using it. Or you are only providing you students with busy work when you have nothing better to offer them!