Engagement without interactivity
Searching and being searchable
Technical interactivity
Engagement and interactivity using just one page
Interactivity with two or more pages
Forums, message boards, and chat
Engagement and Interactivy
Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-interactivity/
nvwillj@nvcc.edu
Engagement and interactivity with two or more pages
Two pages give you a few more possibilites, but also twice as much to keep up with.
1. Questions with feedback and answers on another page(s). There are many variations on this. They include
All questions on one page, separate feedback for each possible answer on separate pages. This is a tough one to keep track of - ten 4-item multiple-choice questions would require 41 pages! Some folks do it, though.All questions on one page, all answers on another page (test page + answer key). This is not very interactive, but it is economical for the page author - there are only two pages to keep track of. Example
Form fill out question page with answer key check. This is just a slightly more interactive version of the first example. In the first, questions are just printed out. In this one, the user types in answers, and is then given a key to compare them to.
One question per page, right answer advances to next page. This would be good for questions which require some mastery - or tenacious guessing. The NVCC library has a tutorial which uses this technique.
All questions on one page, general feedback on other pages. If your subject matter does not require specific feedback, or a limited set of specific feedback, then you could develop a handful of feedback pages and link your answers to them. Example
All questions on one page, all answers and specific feedback on another page (answer key with link and anchor tagging). I forget where I first saw this trick. The answer page has to be very, very long, and heaven help your lab assistants if your students decide to print it!
2. Action mazes - I believe that a fellow named Mario Rinvolucri is credited with developing these for teaching English. The Evil Landlady Action Maze is an example at http://www.tuj.ac.jp/cite/landlady/llady1.htm