Make a Play Once Only question in a Moodle quiz with Justin Hunt's PoodLL Repositories plugin

Image credit: Username Coffee.
https://pixabay.com/en/microphone-stage-sound-1222302/

I am using Moodle 2.7.2 for one of my quizzes. I also use Justin Hunt's excellent PoodLL repositories to make "Play (Listen) Once Only" recordings that I include inside my Moodle quiz.  

The repository has a play-once audio player that looks like this: 

If you ever wanted to make listening-type Moodle quiz questions, then read on!

How would you like to view a Moodle Quiz's Summary Of Attempt table in multiple column format instead of one long list

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls

This post is seventeen (17!) months in the making. Back then I was using Moodle 2.5. It took so long to do because back in November 2013, I was faced with the challenge of redesigning the Summary of Attempt table, but was easily defeated by the complexity of the quiz's renderer.php code.  Ah! Such is the agony of defeat. I found it too difficult to solve, so I left it by the wayside - only to re-attempt the problem in April 2015. You might say that the idea was gestating all this time. By the time I had the solution, which was on 29th April 2015, Moodle had evolved into Moodle 2.8.5. The feeling of the thrill of success is indescribable. Something to be savoured.

At the end of this post, you will be able to have your Moodle quiz display the "Summary of Attempt" in a whole new way, without the usual "scroll of death".

By default, the Summary Of Attempt table in a Moodle Quiz will display as a single column. So a quiz of 50 quiz questions will result in table that extends for most of the screen's height. Here's what my summary looks like with a quiz of 20 questions.

In the example above, I have to scroll all the way down to access and to click the "Submit all and Finish' or 'Return to attempt' buttons. Here's what the table looks like with 49 quiz questions!

Yikes! A long list is generated and I had to scroll all the way down the screen in order to click the "Submit all and finish" button. Now what happens when you have a quiz that consists of 60, 70, 80 or even 100 questions? Think about it.

Hmm.....now then...

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/Thinking.jpg

...WHAT IF the table could be redesigned like the one below?

Firstly, the table is now divided into 3 separate columns. The questions snake up-down-and-left-to-right in fashion.  The question numbers are automatically and dynamically generated in their respective columns . In addition, the status of all unanswered questions are shown as red text so that the user has a instant visual cue.

Customising Moodle2Word to generate simplified multiple choice question Ms Word pages

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ [http://goo.gl/Xlzzy4]
(by U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Charles Oki [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

If you a teacher who uses Moodle and the quiz activity, you might be spending quite some time in crafting hard-copy quizzes or exams. 

I am using Moodle2Word (Version 2015040201, release  3.1.4 (Build: 20150402)) on my Moodle 2.7.x site. Today's post is an update of my earlier blog post on a Moodle 1.9 version of the Moodle2Word plugin.

After three days of hard work, I have managed to a hack on the mqxml2word_pass1.xsl file. What my hack does is to change the output of the Question-Bank-exported-MsWord file.

Soup up your Moodle Quiz with Javascript, CSS and JQuery magic (Frankie Kam, iMoot 2014, Super Session - South East Asia)

Here's my presentation at iMoot 2014. "How I enhanced the look and feel of the standard Moodle quiz to create a feature-rich quiz by using Javascript, CSS and a dose of JQuery".

Screenshot only.
Image shows the Main Title Screen.

This was my first iMoot. Had a hair-raising peroid when preparing my slides before the start of the online Conference (iMoot). My Moodle site's JQuery refused to work. Praise God, I managed to sort the problem only ten days before my session was due. It was a great experience presenting live to a global audience.

Screenshot only.
Me presenting live. Unplugged. With less hair on the top than Tintin,
and with more 'hair' on the sides than Princess Leia.

Here's my iMoot 2014 Video Presentation. Enjoy!



Many thanks to Wendi Kirwan-Elliott and Vinny Stocker of Pukunui for the invite. My presentation contains a visual joke at page 57. You have been warned. Total pages is 135 (only!). Note: The PowerPoint Presentation was temporarily taken offline, and is now online again. The last page of the presentation contains a Youtube demonstration of the souped up Moodle Quiz. You can view the Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57i3rhT-tKI

Frankie kam soup up i moot quiz with javascript css j-query (15th may 2014) from Frankie Kam

Presented by Frankie Kam at iMoot2014, on 18th May 2014.

The first two slides of the presentation were taken from a science-fiction movie starring Sigourney Weaver. If  you know the movie name, that would betray your age-range. :-)

Keep on Moodlin'
Frankie Kam

How to hide the Description Question Type boxes in the Quiz Navigation 'block'/section of Moodle 2.x.

School quiz. Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/2013_school_wikipedia_quiz.JPG

The Description Question Type is useful when you want to include text or graphics before a quiz section. The one problem I find is that the Quiz Navigation block will show up a  [i] box for every Description question type. Not very user-friendly for the student who is taking the quiz.

For three days I searched for a solution to the problem. Talk about tough!

After many hits and misses, I finally got it! I just had to add the following code

   if (!$this->attemptobj->is_real_question($slot)) {
      continue;
   }

to the file named attemptlib.php. The magic code goes immediately inside the foreach loop of the public function get_question_buttons() function, like so:

The effect of this code hack is immediately apparent. Here's what the Quiz Navigation block looks like now.

I find this a very elegant solution to a real design and usability problem. Do you agree? I hope this will be useful for your quizzes.

regards
Frankie Kam

Make your Moodle 2.x Quiz Navigation Section come to life with this useful mouseover hack

Source: http://www.businessethicsalliance.org/blog/pop-quiz-how-would-you-define-community-responsibility/

How would you like to transform your humble Quiz Navigation section into a mini Information System?

Now you can, thanks to Michael Weston and Tim Hunt, who bounced this brilliant idea around from conception to fruition. Michael asked if the Quiz Navigation question links could display the quiz question text on mouseover:

How I managed to allow input of only 1 (one) character in a Cloze input box (Moodle 2.5)

Source: http://www.urban75.org/blog/shop-is-cloze-today-brixton/

Hi. Do you use the Cloze (also known as the multianswer) question type in Moodle 2.5? I use it a lot! 

For quite some time, I was struggling with how to limit a text box, in a Cloze question, to not more than one character of input. Well, after much searching for an answer on moodle.org and almost the entire World Wide Web, I managed to do it.

INTRODUCTIONI had a quiz situation to solve. I had to create a Cloze question where the user has to type in the individual letters to complete a word. In this type of question, a box should contain at most only one letter.

I had to solve FOUR challenges/problems. 

PROBLEM ONE, each cloze input box should be small enough to look like it could only fit one letter.
PROBLEM TWO, the user should only be allowed to key in one letter inside each box. Not more than one letter. 
PROBLEM THREE, the user should be able to type continuously, the letters a, s, s, p, o, r, t and the letters should automatically be input into each successive input box.
PROBLEM FOUR, allow only letters - no spaces or punctuation symbols.

I have a nagging feeling that both problems ONE and TWO could be solved with some creative HTML/CSS and Javascript wizardary, but my desire to solve them come what may, led me to devise this core (unfortunately) code hack. Here's how I solved problems ONE and TWO:

Giving the Davo Smith's Realtime quiz a pie chart

I've blogged on Davo Smith's excellent Realtime Quiz for Moodle 1.9 before here. Today's post is about my latest enhancement to that plugin - a pie chart to visually show the breakdown of scores. After all, doesn't every table cry out for a pictoral representation like a graph or a chart?

Back in February 2012, I was tinkering around with a pie chart code I found on the Net. Here's what I came up with for the Realtime Quiz for Moodle 1.9.

Seems that the table data is crying out for a chart of sorts to display visually summary information. The pie chart code is by Rasmus http://www.peters1.dk/webtools/php/lagkage.php?sprog=en
You can download the file piechart.zip. It contains the two files, responses.php and piechart.php, which allows the pie chart to appear. Both files, when extracted, should go inside the /mod/realtimequiz folder.

Have fun with this new makeover for Moodle 1.9,
Frankie Kam



.

The best way to create Moodle quiz questions for Microsoft users. Period.

What do you use to create Moodle quiz questions? Moodle's built in quiz engine? If you're an expert user, you may be using Notepad (I kid you not!) and the GIFT format of quiz questions. Like so.

// true/false
::Q1:: 1+1=2 {T}

// multiple choice with specified feedback for right and wrong answers
::Q2:: What's between orange and green in the spectrum? 
{ =yellow # right; good! ~red # wrong, it's yellow ~blue # wrong, it's yellow }

// fill-in-the-blank
::Q3:: Two plus {=two =2} equals four.

// matching
::Q4:: Which animal eats which food? { =cat -> cat food =dog -> dog food }

Source: http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/GIFT_format

In my humble opinion, the advantage of the GIFT format is that it allows the casual to expert user to quickly create quiz questions which are then imported into Moodle's quiz engine. It shouldn't take a teacher too long to get used to the text-based method and notation.

I have used the GIFT format in the past to create quiz questions. So, I am not knocking it when I say that the disadvantage, in my humble opinion, is novice users (teachers new to Moodle) may find it too cryptic and will want something closer to home. Another drawback is, how do you insert graphics and image files into a GIFT format file?


Creating quiz questions with Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010

Source: http://alturl.com/phxtc

I want to now share with you what, in my humble and honest opinion, is the best way for Moodle newbies and novice users, who use Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010, to create Moodle quiz questions. Here it is,  Daniel Scheidegger's Word Template version 20, which Lael Grant modified into version 21. Others from the Moodle community have also contributed code to it. This forum explains a bit.

Export Questions from the Moodle 1.9 Question Bank into Ms Word

Moodle2Word is a great Moodle plugin by Eoin Campbell. With it, you can import Ms Word tables as Moodle quiz questions. You can also export Moodle quizzes from the Question Bank into Ms Word format. Eoin has a fantastic website resource that, thanks to his hard work, gives you tons of tools to do import and export of Moodle <--> Ms Word quiz questions. He's written the plugin for versions 1.9 and 2.x for Moodle. All you need is to login as Guest.

At the end this post, you will be able to export Moodle question bank questions into this Ms Word format:

Like what you see? Read on!

Cool Video Quiz: Mashup of Xerte and Moodle quiz

This mashup was originally posted by Joseph Thibault in moodlenews.com on 22 February 2011. As reported by Joseph, it displays "additional quiz information and content in tandem to a Moodle page".  It uses the Open Source e-Learning tool named Xerte. The mashup allows your students to view a video on the same page as the quiz questions that test their understanding of the subject matter taught in the video.

More links related to this quiz format "novelty":
1. Moodle.org forum discussing the mashup.
2. Youtube video demonstrating the mashup.