Task 11 - Implementing the Tools

Since I'm taking the Pi2.0 course over the summer, this is where I outline some plans for using some of the tools we've been looking at. The course where I have the clearest idea of what I want to do is FTG. Having a Wiki that outlines the major topics and techniques learned, and gives students a handy reference for review would be very useful to a lot of students. More importantly, having students actually work to create that Wiki would be even more useful.

The bare minimum job/contents of the Wiki are

• A basic syllabus (which I'll provide)
• Pages devoted to individual units and topics
• Example problems
• Handy formulas to know
• Strategies for problem solving, things to look for etc

There are some tricky things about putting Math on a webpage, and that means that in order to just do those basics, I need to experiment with those MathML tools (see below) in the Sandbox Wiki over the next few weeks. Once I've got the basic system worked out, I'll need to provide an overview of how to actually use the tool (a basic tutorial and reference, that will also of course be part of the Wiki). Note that if there are clear existing tutorials that fill the need, I may be able to just provide some basic site-specific instructions and links to the tutorials, but what I have seen so far seems like it is more designed for the math geek crowd than students.

A large portion of the course is very visually oriented. Geometry and graphing both need lots of diagrams. So another issue is going to be producing good sketches. The secret weapon here is probably Geometer's Sketchpad, which not only can produce accurate elegant geometric images, but more importantly can produce interactive java widgets. In other words, students can produce diagrams that are better (more fun, more illustrative, more memorable) than the kinds of things found in books, because we're doing this on computers.

Part of what makes collaboration on a project like this worthwhile is that different students will bring different skills to the table. Just doing the things above brings in lots of different skills. For example, some students will be eager to produce content, but may not be great at working with the equation tools, or may have a hard time expressing themselves clearly. Other students will be good editors who will be able to tighten things up, look for math errors, or convert awkward "email notation" math into proper equations. Other students will be good at using Sketchpad or other graphics tools to create illustrations. Other students may be better aware at the global structure of the Wiki and see how cross-linking pages can really be helpful. Other students may be good at ferreting out interesting external pages that are worth linking to.

The discussion pages are good places for students to help facilitate this sort of collaboration. "Can anybody make a good diagram for the material I added on foo?" or "I wasn't sure how to make this equation look right -- can anybody fix it and explain how to do it?" or whatever. And of course, the fact that Wikis extensively document content additions and revisions helps me know who is doing what.

I would also like to see students with real creative talents get to use them in ways that make the Wiki more personal. Things like cartoons or other illustrations (beyond geometric diagrams) could be great in moderation, for example, and there are some very artistically talented kids in next year's sophomore class. I want to encourage students who have a good creative idea to pursue it -- if some kid wants to include a haiku they wrote about parallel lines, it could be good. The main thing is to keep the extras down to a reasonable level -- things that make the page fun and interesting to read without getting in the way of the content or making the page overly busy. "Creative" doesn't mean turning the page into one of those ghastly pages with blinking text, a zillion animated gifs, a hideous background that makes it impossible to read the text, and a color scheme that looks like a pack of fluorescent markers vomited all over the page.

Given that we dive right in with new material and the first test is only a couple of weeks into the course, the Wiki has to be introduced on day one, which means that I've got a pretty clear list of things to do. I have to do some basic set-up of the Wiki itself. I'll presumably need an assist from Technology in getting the students themselves set up with accounts (if they need to send a confirmation email from a student account it's a hurdle, after all). I have to find a way to clearly communicate goals to the students (and this communication will be part of the Wiki). I have to walk through the process of content creation and editing for the kinds of things the students will be doing, kicking the tires, and thinking about what information and instruction the students are going to need. I have to think about what basic information and scaffolding should be provided by me at the start, and get that in place.