Chalkface Blog

The best teaching materials in the most practical format.

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Author: Ian Grove-Stephensen

  • 50 new courses in Yacapaca

    As you can see, many authors have been busy over the summer. I have taken a risk this time, and allowed myself to be a little critical where I feel the authors could have stretched themselves further. There is lots of good material in Yacapaca, but only a small amount that is truly great. I…

  • Why is Yacapaca free?

    I get asked this soooo often by incredulous people who seem unaware that Google is free, YouTube is free, Bebo is free…. Here is the answer, from the far-more-eloquent-than-me Cory Doctorow. (if you cannot view the embedded video, go to http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4454381456832593071 )

  • Quiz authoring with extended content

    Daniel Burrows wrote in with an interesting question yesterday: I have just setup my first test and course in yacapaca.com, but I have a problem with how little room I am allowed in feedback (see attached). Is there anyway I can allow my students to scroll, or make the default font bigger? The Yacapaca quiz…

  • How to create and set your own quizzes in Yacapaca

    Not my best-ever screencast, this one, but you may find it useful nonetheless. A Yacapaca member was strugging to set for her kids a quiz that she had just authored. When I looked at it, I realised that the process is not nearly as intuitive as I had imagined. So…

  • Reporting assessment results to parents

    The ever thoughtful Ian Usher just blogged about the challenges of introducing online reporting to parents. This is an issue much in my mind, as we are in the early stages of planning exactly this feature for Yacapaca. It will be part of the free service, of course, and completely automated once set up. Ian…