Activities are the building blocks of lessons; in the interests of avoiding ambiguity and confusion, activities in the eXercist system use a standard set of terms and terminologies. Please observe and use these terminologies.
Students follow our courses by performing a series of activities which are "packaged" into lessons. This "packaging" is the job of the materials writer. Technical staff will interpret this "packaging" and so will be able to transport the activities to the web. Clarity is paramount in this process.
Activities require the students to do something in response to something on the screen: typically, typing, speaking, or using the mouse.
Activities are sometimes composed of just one item ("Listen to the audio conversation, and click on the correct picture") or perhaps of several items ("Read the text and answer the twenty five questions that follow"): but regardless of this difference, it is considered a single activity if the students must respond somehow before moving on to the next stage of the lesson. Thus, a 3 paragraph text which is a gap-fill exercise with 9 gaps is one single activity with 9 items, because the student will complete all 9 items before moving on; and, somewhat contrary to expectations, a reading passage composed of three paragraphs with comprehension questions after each paragraph is defined as three different successive activities, where each activity consists of one paragraph and some questions.
OK so far? Let us return for a moment to our paragraph with 9 gaps. This activity can have two distinct incarnations. In the first, there are simply 9 spaces onscreen, one where each of the 9 gaps is, and students type their answers into the spaces. They can type anything they want. In the second incarnation, each gap is in reality a multiple choice exercise where the student must decide between a number (usually 4) of various possible options, like this:
Tim drink/drinked/drank/drunk a bottle of whisky before breakfast.
In our eXercist system, the possible options are called (surprise!) options. And –even more surprisingly - the options can be either correct or incorrect. It is up to the writer to specify which.
Outside of eXercist, feedback is a multitude of things. Inside eXercist, however, it is only one thing. Feedback is some kind of message shown to the student when an activity or activity item is completed. Feedback is not compulsory for all kinds of activity: writers decide if it is appropriate. Feedback can also be conditional on a right or wrong answer to a single item; let me give an example of each. At the end of a set of items, the activity is finished and so it may be appropriate to give a message such as "Good. You answered 7 questions correctly out of 10." On the other hand, after a single item you might wish to show a message like this: "No; Tom wasn’t happy. He was very sad." or like this: "Good. This is an example of indirect speech. You can learn more about indirect speech later in the lesson.". Feedback is a message, we have said- but what kind of message? It may be on the screen (the words "Excellent", or an animation of a bunch of flowers) or it may be on the loudspeakers (a voice saying "You were fantastic! Well done!") but in any case the crucial definition is that feedback is given when an item or exercise has been assessed. Feedback is only given when the student has finished (either item or activity) and so will not attempt the item or activity again. Writers should also note that the feedback element could be creatively used for a totally different function – giving new information in a treasure hunt, for instance – rather than necessarily merely commenting on the activity or item that has just been completed.
Hints on the other hand are given or shown to the student while doing the activity or item, and before it has been completed. In this they perform a radically different function from feedback. After receiving a hint, a student will continue the item or activity. Sometimes a hint is given when the student asks for it- perhaps by pressing a "hint" button, and sometimes it may be given after a given item has been attempted unsuccessfully. Hints give help to the student, and if they are given, usually diminish the total marks available for the activity.