On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 10:04 AM, John Faig<johnfaig...@gmail.com> wrote: > > David, >
... > > 1. Improve the interface so that students can explore more easily. > This could be a dropdown box that lists all mathematical operations > by concept. For example, there could be an "arithmetic group" with > add, subtract, multiply and divide. There could be a "change > representation" to convert among percents, decimals, fractions, and > scientific notation. There could be a "circle" group with "calculate > radius", "calculate area", "calculate circumference", etc. The > "circle" calculations would only work if students have defined the > necessary variable. Lastly, I envision a library of formal > definitions. This sounds like a much expanded form of a help system? I wonder if a javascript form of a "tutorail for middle schoolers" could be created and then run separately in another tab of the notebook FF browser? Run Sage in one tab, the interactive explore MS tutorial in another? > > 2. One form of collaboration could be a built-in chat (audio or text) > so that students can work together on problems. Students can chat > with fellow students. The teacher sees all the chats to make sure > that students are on task. The chats will also shed light on areas > where students are confused. Sometimes, the teacher may shutoff the > chat - possibly for an exam. The teacher may setup a chat between a > student who understands a concept and a student who is struggling. I know 0 about chat but I wonder again if this could be run in another tab of the firefox brower? Sage in one tab, the interactive help in another, and google chat (or something) in a third. There seems to be a firefox plugin for a lot of things, if you can't use google chat maybe there is a plugin for some other kind? > > 3. Math calculations can be saved in a "personal notebook". Students > can annotate and reflect on what they did. Students can also submit a > "personal notebook" to the teacher. Students could share a "personal > notebook" with a fellow student so that they can compare different > ways to solve problems. The teacher may want to provide a partially > completed calculation or an incorrect calculation and ask students to > fix it. Teachers could also provide a generic problem template and > students "fill in" the numbers based on personal interests. I don't see how this is different from what is already available. Maybe I'm not understanding the idea (caveat: I very rarely use the notebook). > > 4. Thinking back to the operation "lists" in comment #1 above. The > teacher could disable operations from time to time to force students > to do manual calculations. I can't think of a way to do that offhand, except to try to design the assigned worksheet to be part manual and part computational. > > 5. I think that it would be beneficial to have different modes so > students can easily move between tables, graphs, and symbolic > representations. I'm not sure if I understand what this means. IN any case, at the moment, Sage does not have a nice "gui" for creating a table, eg as in entering data into a spreadsheet-like form. > > Hope this helps. I have a vision in my head and this was a bit of a > stream of consciousness. > > Thanks in advance for any thoughts! I think Minh's idea to explore implementing your ideas using a moodle-Sage interface is definitely worth exploring. Please write back if you fine any good solutions to your ideas! > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-edu" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-edu@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-edu+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-edu?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
