Spelling Bees and Interactive Vocabulary Quizzes #37

E-Learning Spelling Bees #37: Challenge | Recap

The 2014 National Spelling Bee competition kicked off this week. Spellers from around the world will compete for the crown in one of America’s most enduring celebrations of academic excellence.

While the children are buzzing about spelling words most of us can’t pronounce, I thought it would be fun to pull together a few interactive audio packages that could inspire some practical applications for course designers. Knowing most of you have an affinity for the written word, I thought this would also make a great e-learning challenge.

Before we jump into this week’s challenge, take a look at some innovative spelling projects to get a sense of what’s possible.

National Spelling Bee: Public Sample

Test your spelling skills to see if you could qualify for the Semifinals. Featuring audio pronunciations and text entry fields, this format is great for practicing your spelling.

Are you a word whiz? Test your spelling skills!

USA Today: Could you win the National Spelling Bee?

This quiz includes audio pronunciations and options for visitors to learn more about the definition and origin of the word and to hear the word used in a sentence.

Notice any similarities to the previous example? Most of the same options are provided but rather than pushing everything on the slide, the USA Today interactive used a pull approach giving visitors more control over their experience.

Click to test your skills!

Annenberg Learner: Spelling Bee

This audio quiz uses a story-based approach to spelling bees. Visitors listen to a story and then spell the words from each story.

Clicking the text entry fields pauses the story so visitors can repeat the words. Very clever interaction. I’m hoping several of you take on this model for your challenge demo.

View the Spelling Bee Quiz

The Guardian: National Spelling Bee

This spelling quiz doesn’t use audio—it’s entirely text based. It’s a good option for course designers who face multimedia constraints where audio isn’t an option.

How would you fare in the National Spelling Bee?

Challenge of the week

This week your challenge is to build an interactive vocabulary quiz. You can focus your interaction on spelling, pronunciation, comprehension, or anything else.

Look for interaction opportunities to capture learner responses. You’ve seen how text entry and multiple choice interactions can work. What else would work?

Need vocabulary content ideas?

Last week’s challenge

To avoid an interactive dry spell, check out the interactive steps your fellow community members took in last week’s e-learning challenge:

More about the e-learning challenges:

The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. We’ll feature your work and provide feedback if you request it.

Wishing you a spellbound week, E-Learning Heroes!

Even if you’re using a trial version of Studio ’13 or Storyline, you can absolutely publish your challenge files. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial, and have at it. And remember to post your questions and comments in the forums; we're here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.

65 Comments
Nicholas Sargent
Dana Kocalis

My course is definitely not complete...I wanted to do a "Speak & Spell" for this exercise for the purpose of getting a better grasp on variables. I only have one "easy" word for you to spell - but I learned a ton through this exercise, which is really the goal for me...to learn at least one new thing with each challenge. http://s3.amazonaws.com/tempshare-stage.storyline.articulate.com/stp18pmi3319bqi18vb1beho9h1esr1/story.html I wanted the learner to be able to spell the word and press "Enter" before the "correct" screen appears, but not sure how to do that....yet. My next goal is to also figure out how to display wrong entries on the screen and have the "incorrect" layer appear. The easy way would be to just allow the learner to "type in" the response vs. pressing butto... Expand

Nicholas Sargent
Gemma Henderson
Nicholas Sargent

Thanks Dana and Gemma! (If it were for real, I'd probably have to relax that timer; it's sometimes easy to race it too fast for someone seeing it for the first time, when as the author, you are so familiar with your own content.) One limitation I had, and maybe someone can advise me on this: I initially wanted to use the native scoring features from the text box interaction (just update the parameter to give 5 points for a correct answer). But when I added the penalty for using clues (timed or chosen), I didn't know how to manipulate the native-Storyline scoring variable to take away a point. So, I had to use my own TotalScore variable to capture both the text box interaction and the penalty clues (made my own submit button and deactivated Storyline's). Is there a list of Storyline vari... Expand

Daniel Sweigert