Text: fill-in blanks (I)

Open JClic author. Go to File | New project. Call it module4. The remaining spaces in the window will be filled in automatically with the same name. Press OK.

In the tab Project, change the title and add the description:

In User interface select the skin @blue.xml. All the activities will have this outline.

Skip over the tab Media Library. At the moment it is empty, and in this session you will not add any multimedia objects.

In Activities, create a new one . Choose the type Text: fill-in blanks . Name it Fill-in blanks writting in a blank space.

From Text, copy the following text (the author´s name is not necessary). You can do this by typing in the whole text, or selecting the text (if you are reading it with JClic open) and pressing: Control + C from the practice session and Control + V in the text panel in JClic author.

Go to the tab Content.

Select Venice from the title. Click on the button which brings you to the selection of the type of unknown element. . A dialogue box will open where the selected word has been included as a valid answer:

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In Maximum length the number of letters in Venice appears. When a word is typed into the blank space, the text accepts only six letters as that is the number of letters in Venice. If more than six letters are typed in, these do not show up. This is extremely important when there are several words that can be chosen as possible answers.

The Filling in character is what the user will see. It can be changed with the keyboard. Underscore is predefined ( _ ). The effect of this on the screen is a continuous line. If you want the characters to be seen one by one, you must choose shorter signs (dots, asterisks, plus signs...). Remember that for many pupils these characters used for filling in are a good guide for them to know how many letters there are in the missing word.

The Initial length shows, through the filling in characters, the number of characters that the user will see when beginning the activity. You can use one per letter, or one for the unknown element. In this case, the pupil will know where to write the word, but will not know its length.

Going back to the practice, leave the predefined character for the moment.

As unknown elements the words heaven, monarch, sceptre and power. Don´t change any option.

Press to test the activity. Close the test window.

The text should now have the following aspect:

To chamge the size of the letters go to the tab Style. From this tab you can do two different things:

• Using the button Style of document you can choose the type of letter, the size, style and colours which will be predefined throughout the document.
  
• With the dropdown lists and the buttons you get the same effect but only applicable to the fragment of text you have pre-selected.

In general, it is better to use the style button and leave the other controls for such changes as the title, a certain word or expression you wish to highlight in black or another colour etc.

Click on the button Styles of document . Choose the font Courier New size 16:

OK. Try out the activity again using .

As this is a larger size letter style, the text will need a displacement bar to be able to see the text in the window. Amplify the window as you have already learnt to do with grids in other activities: by dragging the mouse when the point turns into arrows, from the two free sides. Enlarge the window until the displacement bar disappears.

Go to the tab Window and choose:

Save the activity in module4.jclic.zip.

The activity for filling in blank spaces is finished, but to help choose the correct answer for the unknown elements, we will show the complete text at the beginning of the activity.

From the tab Content press the button . The dialogue box from Preliminary window will appear.

Activate the option Display this text. Introduce the text in the same way as before: select the text on the screen (you have it in JClic author) using the combination Control+C, place the point of the mouse in the squre where you are placing the text and press Control+V. Select the same style that you have: font (Courier New), size (16), background (white).

Write the following message after clicking on the box :

Introduce the style, too.

Test the activity using . The initial message of the activity must explain what the user has to do. If your message does this, leave it. If not, change it for a new one.

If the pupil realises that he/she hasn´t read the text well enough and has to read it again, he/she can press the button from JClic and start the activity again.

Save the activity again in module4.jclic.zip.