Eons ago, it seems, Netscape developed a programming language called JavaScript that allows web designers to add interactive features to their web sites. Educators soon realized that JavaScript could be used to create web-based online quizzes for students to test their own knowledge of a subject. While JavaScript is an easier computing language to learn than most others, it frankly is much more difficult than the HTML markup language used to create web pages. It's not the type of thing your average teacher is going to bother with, and the result is that few have the skills to create JavaScript enabled quizzes.
Fortunately, a company called Half Baked Software solved this problem by creating a suite of programs for Windows and Macintosh called Hot Potatoes. Hot Potatoes is an important piece of work and the quizzes can add a great deal of value to the courses you teach.
A full, non-expiring version of Hot Potatoes can be downloaded for free from the Half Baked Software web site at http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/ Note that while you can freely download the software, Hot Potatoes is free only under certain circumstances. As of October, 2001 the web site states:
Hot Potatoes is free for use by individuals or educational institutions which are non-profit making, on the condition that the material you produce using the program is freely available to anyone via the WWW. However, you need to purchase a license under any of the following conditions:
You are working for a company or corporation.
You are in business for yourself.
You charge money for access to the material you make with Hot Potatoes.
You do not make the material freely available through the WWW.
As you know, Manhattan is a closed environment, open only to the students in your class. Therefore, even if you are teaching for a non-profit institution, you will need to purchase a license to use Hot Potatoes within a Manhattan classroom, unless you also make the quizzes you create available to anyone via the web. Check the Hot Potatoes web site for the latest information on the software and its licensing.
Manhattan's Self-tests module was inspired by, and designed to support, Hot Potatoes quizzes. The Self-tests module supports Hot Potatoes quizzes in two ways:
It provides a place with a good, logical name to store these quizzes.
It supports a special feature of Hot Potatoes that allows both the teacher and the students to view a history of their scores with each Hot Potato quiz.
As you'll see, since a Hot Potatoes quiz is an ordinary web page, you can post it to any of Manhattan's modules. However, only the Self-tests module supports Hot Potatoes' special student tracking feature. That's the hidden feature mentioned earlier that makes the Self-tests module different from the Lectures and Handouts/Notices modules. While the Self- tests module provides a means for tracking student activity with Hot Potatoes quizzes, the Self-tests module does not represent a secure testing system. As you'll learn, students can easily cheat by seeing the answers to the quizzes before the results are submitted back to the Manhattan server. Manhattan's Assignments module, however, does provide limited support for online testing using Hot Potatoes - see Online testing: Hot Potatoes exams.