Interactivity on Web pages
Java applets and some DHTML Javascript can be used for educational purposes- and you don't have to code a line
Drag and drop puzzles can be created using the wonderful Hot Potatoes quiz generator but that is not the main objective of the package. More flexible pages can be built using ‘canned’ java applets. Javascript can also be used with DHTML divs and layers to create drag and drop functionality.
The sites below contain reusable code
- Eric Harshbarger’s Java Applet depot – applets can be downloaded as .tar files. Details about the applet tags and supporting files are on each page.
- The Word Magnets, Image Magnets and Coloring Book applets lend themselves to Maths and general use (examples up tomorrow)
- Graeme P. Bell’s Fridge Magnet Poetry javascript/DHTML page provides a magnetic words type interface – alas the Javascript runs but has bad positioning on Safari. The nice thing about this implementation is that you can save your creations as HTML files.
- Joseph Pearson has a Fridge Poetry page as well with minimal Javascript, the ability to save poems, discard words and to select an alternate word list. Elegant and will probably get used. Found via the Javascript Weblog
- Mr Pearson has his own blog called Make-Believe and he has a recent post discussing how to reduce the load on servers when using Ajax to update page content – with a most unusual example.
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bodmas.org, 24 August 2005