Expand your list of question types

1 Extending the interactions

If you stand back a little and ask yourself how a student may provide an input to the computer it will not take you long to work out that there are only three basic interactions.

• Typing.
• Pointing/dragging with mouse or finger.
• Speaking into a microphone.

Given that automatic analysis of speech is very difficult that leaves us with only two input methods. If we are to engage our students and keep them entertained by varying our questions then we need to do as much as we can with those limited inputs. This section will show you:

• How selection questions can be dressed up in multiple guises.
• How moving things around on screen is a little more 'fun'.
• How learning a foreign language requires some precision that a computer can check.
• How Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics have languages of their own and those languages are precise and tractable by the computer.
• How you can cope with short answers in the very rich English language.