Hot potatoes

Hot potatoes is a software that allows you to create different types of activities (matching, crosswords, multiple choice, fill in the gaps, etc.) so that students can play them online. In this way, we can make students practice what they learn in a more attractive and dynamic way. For example, if they are learning vocabulary about animals, we can create different activities about the same topic.

In this example you can see a crossword that I created that I would use to review vocabulary of professions in 2nd or 3rd grade of primary education.

 

Professions

Crossword

Complete the crossword, then click on "Check" to check your answer. If you are stuck, you can click on "Hint" to get a free letter. Click on a number in the grid to see the clue or clues for that number.

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Across: 4. A ____ cooks food in a restaurant 5. A _______ delivers letters that are sent by post 6. A ______ looks after sick people 7. A ___________ puts out fires

Down: 1. A _____ bakes bread and cakes and usually works in a bakery 2. A _______ works in a school 3. A ___ takes care of animals 5. A _____ flies planes

In this other example, I did a matching game about body parts for childhood education or 1st grade of primary education. Here you have the link to the matching activity.

I think hot potatoes is a good tool to create activities, specially because you can create different types of activities in the same software and you do not have to be using different apps for different types of activities. Moreover, although at the beginning it may be hard to use once you are used to it, it is not that difficult. 

However, I think this software has some drawbacks. First, adding images to the activities tends to cause problems because the online links sometimes do not work or if you download the images to your computer when you publish the activity online sometimes you cannot see them. Second, the process of publishing the activities online can be challenging and, as happens in the matching activity, when you publish it on the blog it is misconfigured. Finally, I think the layout is quite old-fashioned and not very attractive.