OpenTeacher, a new concept in educational software

Testing

You can start the geography test with one click on the Teach me! tab that is found at the bottom edge of the screen. If you have previously activated the pronounce place names option in the Pronunciation tab in the settings window, the software will produce an audio version of the place names when a question is posed. The pronunciation in these audio versions is often quite bad, so it is probably better to not activate pronunciation for place names.

In the area at the bottom of the window, you will also find a progress bar similar to the one you saw on the vocabulary lessons. The places are designated on the map with an unlabeled red dot. By clicking on each of the dots, you can connect the place name that is being asked for with its geographical coordinates.

The end result of a completed lesson will be displayed in a special listing, just as is the case after a vocabulary test. Naturally, you can save the file in HTML format for generating things like instructional materials.

Room for Improvement

The topography module included in OpenTeacher is still in the early stages of development and contains a significant defect. This defect makes it suitable only for tests and quizzes based on recently created lessons.

The file formats provided for saving lessons do not permit saved lessons to be later loaded into OpenTeacher. Although you can save lessons as PNG and HTML files for printing later, files in these formats cannot be edited in OpenTeacher.

The format provided in OpenTeacher that is intended for editing purposes contains a serious defect. Place names are saved independently from the topographic map. However, when a file saved in this way is reloaded, the map of Africa is always displayed by default. This defect leads to inaccurate displays for place names that have actually been saved correctly (Figure 7).