This is a teacher's guide to creating interactive cloze or fill-in-the-blank learning activities using Hot Potatoes.

1. Create a Cloze (fill-in-the-blank) activity
1. Open Hot Potatoes
2. Choose JCloze
3. Type in a Quiz title
4. Type or Paste the text in the large text box
5. Select the first text item
6. Choose the Gap button
7. The Gapped word alternatives pop up appears
8. Ensure this information is accurate
9. Add a clue if required

2. 10. Type in the alternate answers (in this case a space before and after the word)
11. Click OK
12. The word appears in underlined italicized red. This is where the gap will appear.
13. Repeat steps 5 to 11
14. Continue adding gaps until your quiz is finished.
15. To make editing of the gap items quick, click the ShowWords button
16. To customize the instructions, Click on the menu item Options
17. Click Configure output

3. 18. In the tab, Titles/Instructions, paste or type in instructions.
19. In the tab, Buttons, choose to hide or show screen elements such as the Hint button. In the
screen below, all of these elements are hidden.
20. In the tab, Appearance, alter the font face, font size and the colors as below.
21. Click OK
22. If everything is acceptable, you should save the JCloze project file (.jcl format)

4. Save the project file
1. Click File, Save As
2. Type in a file name
3. Click on the Save button
• You must now publish the file in HTML format for students to use.
Publish the project for student use
1. Click File
2. Click Create Web Page
3. Click Standard Format
4. Type a file name
5. Note the file type is HTML
6. Click Save
7. Choose View the exercise in my browser
8. Check for any issues
9. If the project is acceptable,
locate the folder and copy it
onto a USB drive or a server
for sharing.

5. Adding images
1. Place all of the project images into a folder
2. In the Title section,
3. Click to the right of the title text (to set an insertion point for the image)
4. Click on the Insert a picture from a file on your hard drive icon
5. Locate the picture/image on your hard drive
6. Select the image
7. Click Open
8. Alter the size (smaller)
9. Change the alignment to Centre
for best results
10. Click OK

6. 11. HTML code appears (don’t worry)
12. Click the Save icon
13. Click the Export to Web icon
14. Click Save
15. Click Yes
16. Preview the exercise

7. Activity Text
Fossil Collecting
Fossil collecting can be a very relaxing and rewarding hobby. There are no special rules about where
one may find fossils, and you can find fossils in many places where sedimentary rocks are exposed,
such as clays, shales, limestones and sandstones. Only certain sedimentary rocks will yield fossils,
and they are often concentrated along particular bedding planes within the rocks.
Type the missing words in the blanks. Click or tap "Check" to check your answers.