Creating adaptive online learning materials with the QuizPort module for Moodle

As a way to cater for an increasingly diverse range of abilities and demographic backgrounds in tertiary education, while at the same time promoting effi ciency and transparency in classroom administration, online learning management systems (LMS), such as Moodle, hold great potential for the teacher willing to incorporate a degree of technology into his or her teaching practice. One exciting possibility that these systems off er is to allow students to interact with multimedia materials which are not only engaging but also ubiquitously available via the Internet. However, the very fact that an LMS can be accessed anytime from anywhere via the web often means that the LMS as a whole, and the content creation tools of the LMS in particular, are based on static web-pages which can be slow and cumbersome for editing tasks. It is often far easier for teachers to create content outside of the LMS, using content authoring software with which they are familiar such as Hot Potatoes, and then import that content into the LMS. e recently completed QuizPort module for Moodle allows such externally created content to be administered via Moodle, and furthermore allows teachers to defi ne different paths through the materials depending on students’ navigation choices and responses to challenges within the content. e learning path is decided in part automatically according to the student’s responses, and in part manually by off ering Column the


Introduction
As a way to cater for an increasingly diverse range of abilities and demographic backgrounds in tertiary education, while at the same time promoting effi ciency and transparency in classroom administration, online learning management systems (LMS LMS), such as Moodle, hold great potential for the teacher willing to incorporate a degree of technology into his or her teaching practice. One exciting possibility that these systems off er is to allow students to interact with multimedia materials which are not only engaging but also ubiquitously available via the Internet. However, the very fact that an LMS LMS can be accessed anytime from anywhere via the web often means that the LMS LMS as a whole, and the content creation tools of the LMS LMS in particular, are based on static web-pages which can be slow and cumbersome for editing tasks. It is often far easier for teachers to create content outside of the LMS LMS, using content authoring software with which they are familiar such as Hot Potatoes, and then import that content into the LMS LMS. e recently completed QuizPort module for Moodle allows such externally created content to be administered via Moodle, and furthermore allows teachers to defi ne different paths through the materials depending on students' navigation choices and responses to challenges within the content. e learning path is decided in part automatically according to the student's responses, and in part manually by off ering

Background
Moodle is an open-source LMS LMS that allows teachers to create and administer courses wholly or partially via a local area network (LAN LAN) or the internet. e popularity of Moodle stems not only from its active online forums, where Moodle developers and users interact with and support one another, but also from the fl exible structure of the software which allows its functionality to be extended using plugins. One such plugin that initially developed outside of Moodle but was later incorporated into the standard Moodle download was the HotPot module. is module allows interactive activities authored on the teacher's own PC PC using software called Hot Potatoes to be administered via Moodle.
ere are fi ve kinds of Hot Potatoes activity: cloze activities, crossword activities, matching activities, jumbled sentence activities and conventional quiz activities which contain a series of questions to which the students select from a number of possible answers or enter a short word or phrase into a text box. e HotPot module was pioneered by omas Robb in and then revamped in by Gordon Bateson who continues to maintain the module today.
e HotPot module has evolved to become a reliable and popular part of Moodle, but discussions on the Moodle help forums for the HotPot module have highlighted several key areas where educators feel the software could be improved. ese are: . administer a set of quizzes as a single learning unit . insert multimedia such as images, sounds and videos into quizzes without the need to input HTML HTML code directly . lock some quizzes until certain conditions, such as scores on previous quizzes, have been met . branch through the materials so that the score a student gets on a particular quiz will determine which quiz they are shown next . change settings, for example the navigation style or the maximum grade, on several quizzes at once . be compatible with the most recent versions of Moodle, which improve the layout, security, accessibility and maintainability of the software.
To address these shortcomings a new Moodle module has been developed as the successor to the HotPot module. e new module does everything that the HotPot module does but also addresses the issues listed above. For the purposes of this paper the most notable features of the new module are that it allows the teacher to treat a collection of quizzes as a single learning unit and then add pre-conditions to control access to the quizzes, and post-conditions to specify what happens after a student fi nishes each quiz. e combination of pre-and post-conditions provides a simple yet powerful mechanism to create adaptive learning materials, which off er students challenges suitable for their level and preferred learning style. e following section will describe how to make such a unit of adaptive learning materials using Hot Potatoes (version ) to create the quizzes and the QuizPort module running on Moodle (version . ) to administer the quizzes to students. e unit will contain several

Create a container folder
To simplify fi le management, it is a good idea to create a folder on the teachers PC PC to hold all of the quizzes and media fi les for a single unit. Let us call this folder "Jupiter-Vocabulary."

Prepare the vocabulary
Before making the matching activities using the JMatch component of the Hot Potatoes software, you need to decide on which English vocabulary items you wish to use and then create sound fi les and translations for those items. You may be fortunate enough to work with willing and able native speakers of your students' mother tongue who can help with the translation. Alternatively there are many online resources for translating. For example, I often need to translate from English to Japanese and two of the most useful sites I have come across are Space ALC ALC (http://www.alc.co.jp) for single words, and POP POP Jisyo (http:// www.popjisyo.com) for longer phrases and sentences. I usually try to locate translations online and then ask native Japanese speakers for confi rmation of items about which I am not sure.

Create the sound fi les
To create the sound fi les you will need audio recording software and a microphone that connects to your computer. Your operating system may come with its own recording software, and there are many open-source and commercial programs you could use for this purpose, such as the trial version of Easy MP MP Recorder for Windows, but one reliable and freely available sound editing application that runs on all major operating systems is Audacity (download: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download). Audacity also requires the LAME LAME MP MP encoder (http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php). e LAME MP LAME MP encoder is a separate piece of software from Audacity, but Audacity needs it to export audio clips as MP MP fi les. Details about how to download and install the LAME LAME MP MP encoder are available on the Audacity help pages ("How do I download and install the LAME MP LAME MP encoder?" http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp ).
Having installed Audacity and the LAME MP LAME MP encoder on your computer and started up Audacity, you can record your voice by clicking the record button and speaking into your microphone. e Audacity manual (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-. ) has more exact details about recording. Since MP MP is the most widely used fi le format for audio clips on the web, I recommend you export the audio from Audacity as an MP MP fi le so that it is accessible to as many web-based media players as possible. As you create the sound fi les, one for each vocabulary item, you should save them in the same folder as the JMatch fi les and give them meaningful names such as "neighbor.mp " or "howdoyoudo.mp ." Make sure that the names do not contain spaces and check that all fi lenames end with ".mp ", so that no matter what operating system the fi le is transferred to, it will always be recognized as an MP MP sound fi le.

Install the Hot Potatoes software
e Hot Potatoes software runs on the teacher's own computer, so the fi rst step is to download and install the Hot Potatoes software. e installer can be downloaded for free from the University of Victoria web site (download: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/index.htm#downloads). e unregistered version of the software allows you to make short quizzes with a limited number of questions. However, if you register the software, which is free to do, the limit on the length of the quiz is removed. Be aware that although teachers at state-funded educational institutions do not need a license to use Hot Potatoes, if you work at a private institution, you should purchase either a personal or institutional license to ensure that the software continues to receive funding for its maintenance and development (license: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/index.htm#downloads). Once the software is installed and registered the teacher will be able to create quizzes using the following fi ve applications: JCloze -cloze activities JCross -crossword activities JMatch -matching activities JMix -jumbled sentence activities JQuiz -quizzes containing multiple choice and fi ll in the blank questions Detailed instructions and tutorials for using each of these applications are available on the web. For example, see "Tutorials and Other Resources on Hot Potatoes" http://hotpot.uvic. ca/wintutor /tutorial.htm).

Create the multimedia JMatch quizzes
In our example we will use JMatch to make a sequence of matching activities which familiarize students with a set of vocabulary items. We will make eight matching activities which students should attempt in order of diffi culty, where "Stage " is the easiest activity and "Stage " is the most diffi cult. Each activity will have Japanese items in the left column and draggable audio players for spoken English phrases in the right hand column. e students' task will be to match the spoken English phrases with the corresponding Japanese text within the time limit of one minute. e "Stage " quiz requires fi ve items to be matched whereas in the "Stage " quiz eight items have to be matched. To cut down on the work the teacher needs to do to create the quizzes we will make just one JMatch activity containing sixteen matching pairs, and then use the confi guration settings to specify how many pairs should be displayed in each stage of the unit. e JMatch user interface will look something like this:

Figure 1. Creating a Hot Potatoes JMatch quiz
In the above screen shot, the fi rst matching item of the quiz has already been input. Notice that the Japanese text goes in the left column and the name of the sound fi le, contained in square brackets, goes in the right column. Input all sixteen items in a similar way.
Having created the JMatch activity with sixteen items you can go ahead and save it as JMatch fi le (File → Save) in the folder we created earlier. e fi le name should be something meaningful such as "stage .jmt." Notice that the fi le name ends with ".jmt", so that the fi le is recognized as a JMatch fi le on whatever computer it is transferred to.
In order to limit the number of items that are actually displayed, we go to the JMatch output confi guration page (Options → Confi gure Output), select the "Other" tab, check the box marked "Show a limited number of items each time the page loads" and enter the number for the setting marked "Number of items to show on each page load." We will also check the box marked "Shuffl e order of items each time page loads" so that students will not be able to predict the order of the left hand side items. Now click the "Timer" tab and check the box marked "Set a time limit for this exercise." Set "Minutes" to " " and the "Seconds" to " ." To save these settings we now click the "OK OK" button and the save the activity again.

Add the QuizPort module to Moodle
In order to administer these quizzes via Moodle as a unit of adaptive learning materials, you will need to make sure that the QuizPort module is installed and enabled on your Moodle site. If it is not installed you can download the module from the moodle.org site (http:// moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d= &rid= ) and install and enable it following the instructions in the Moodle documentation ("Installing contributed modules or plugins" http://docs.moodle.org/en/Installing_contributed_modules_or_plugins).

Add the quizzes to Moodle
At this point we have a folder containing the sixteen sound fi les and eight quizzes. We can now upload these fi les to a Moodle course. Having logged in to Moodle as a teacher, go to the main course page of a course for which you are a teacher. If necessary, switch on editing Click "Choose or Upload a fi le" and a popup window appears which shows the fi les available for this Moodle course. is is where we will upload the fi les from the teacher's PC PC.

Figure 3. Creating a folder
First click the "Make a folder" button, enter "Jupiter-Vocabulary" for the folder name and click "Create" to create the folder. If you now click the folder name, i.e. Jupiter-Vocabulary, your browser will display the new, empty folder. Upload the sound fi les and quiz fi les one by one to this folder using the "Upload a fi le" button. When all the fi les have been uploaded, click the "Choose" link by any of the fi les. e window will then automatically close and the path to the quiz fi le will be inserted into the text box labeled "Source fi le." Remove the fi le name part of the path so that the box contains only the folder name, i.e. Jupiter-Vocabulary. e other important setting on this page is "Add quiz chain" which you should set to "Yes." Now click "Save and display" and a new QuizPort activity containing the eight new quizzes will be added to your Moodle course.

Add pre-conditions and post-conditions
If the student were to view the QuizPort at this stage, they would be shown a menu of the quizzes that you uploaded and they could choose which quiz they want to take. When all the quizzes had been completed, the entire QuizPort activity would be marked as completed.
However, since we are aiming to create adaptive learning materials, we will now add pre-and post-conditions to guide the students on a particular path through the materials. First, we will add pre-conditions to control which quiz is shown fi rst. en we will add post-conditions to specify which quiz should be shown next after each quiz is fi nished.
When a teacher views a QuizPort activity, they can see several navigation tabs at the top of the page. e pre-and post-conditions are added on the "Edit quizzes" tab. Clicking on that tab will display the list of quizzes that were added in the preceding paragraphs (Figure ).
To add a pre-condition we select "Conditions" from the "Show columns" drop down menu, and then click "Add" in the "Pre-conditions" column for the quiz to which the pre-condition is to be added. In the condition pop-up window, select "Previous quiz" for the "Condition quiz" setting and then click "Save changes." Before adding the post-conditions, let us pause to clarify what conditions we wish to add. Remember that we have created eight quizzes of increasing diffi culty. We want to allow able students to pass quickly through the quizzes while requiring less able students to spend time becoming more familiar with the target vocabulary. To achieve this we will arrange the quizzes in a linear fashion and set post-conditions based on the score achieved in each quiz. If students score -% we will let them skip the next quiz. If they score -% then can proceed to the next quiz. If they score -% then must redo the quiz, and if they score less than % they go back to the previous quiz.
We will start by adding a post-condition to the quiz for "Stage ." Click the "Add" link in the post-conditions column for the "Stage " quiz. In the condition pop-up window, locate the "Condition score" line and if necessary uncheck the "Disable" checkbox. Make sure the comparison symbol is ">=", "greater than or equal to", and then enter in the score box. For the "Next quiz" setting, select "Skip next quiz" and then click "Save changes" to create the new post-condition. e post-condition settings have been remembered, so you can now easily add the same post-condition to quizzes for stages to by clicking "Add" to each quiz in turn. When that is done, return to the postcondition column for "Stage " and click "Add." Set the score condition to >= % and the "Next quiz" setting to "Next quiz." Click save changes and then add a similar condition to the quizzes for stages to . For "Stage ", use the same score condition, but set the "Next quiz" setting to "End of unit." Now add post-conditions for all quizzes where the "Condition score" is >= % and the "Next quiz" is "Same quiz." Finally add conditions for the quizzes for stages to where the "Condition score" is disabled and the "Next quiz" is "Previous quiz." Figure 6. Display conditions on a quiz 9. Add media players e fi nal step is to make sure that the media players to play the sound fi les specifi ed with the square bracket notation are inserted into the quizzes. We fi rst edit one quiz to use the required setting and then set all the other quizzes to use the same setting. Click the edit icon in the "Edit" column for "Stage ." In the "Display" section of the quiz settings page, set the "Use media fi lter" setting to "QuizPort media fi lter", then click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page. You will then return to the "Edit quizzes" page, where you now select "Display" from the "Show columns" drop down menu. Click the left most checkbox in the top row of the "Select" column and confi rm that the checkboxes for all quizzes are checked. en check the checkbox in the second row of the "Use media fi lter" column. Now scroll to the bottom of the page and select the radio button marked "Apply selected default values." (Figure ) What we have done here is to specify that the default setting for "Use media fi lter" is to be applied to all the quizzes in the unit. To apply the new settings, click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page.

Conclusion
e adaptive learning unit is now complete. Students will be shown "Stage " fi rst and they will progress through to "Stage " at a pace which adapts to their level. is activity appears as the " b. Meaning Matcher" on the BaBeeBoo.com web site (http://www.babeeboo.com/ mod/quizport/view.php?id= ).