A new kind of a math editor?

A new kind of a math editor?

by Mauno Korpelainen -
Number of replies: 4

The Matriculation Examination Board in Finland has created an usb stick based exam system (Abitti) where all exams are done digitally
https://www.ylioppilastutkinto.fi/en/matriculation-examination/digital-matriculation-examination

Basicly it is an offline exam system but teachers can create and grade "course exams" online and most of the GPL tools can be practised online.

I would like to test adding some of these tools to moodle for two reasons:

1) to make testing and practising our national exam tools easier for students with help of tools of moodle - especially the "math tools"
2) to give some new tools for Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry teachers in moodle

The first step might be to test adding the abitti math editor to moodle. You might be able to use it in the future

a) to create editable svg images to moodle with normal editor buttons of Atto or TinyMCE (or CKEditor)
b) to use it as an optional editor like Atto
c) to use it in some new question types similar to Wiris question types

Source of the GPL editor is here https://github.com/digabi/rich-text-editor ,
example code in https://github.com/digabi/rich-text-editor/blob/master/index.html and a working online demo in http://digabi.github.io/rich-text-editor/
or https://math-demo.abitti.fi/ In this demo editor "Lisää kaava" means "Add a formula".

Because the editor is using two "math engines" - MathJax and MathQuill - it is not fully cross browser compatible (MathQuill has some problems in mobiles)

What do you think? Is this worth testing in moodle or a too big challenge?

Tim?

Daniel?

example

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In reply to Mauno Korpelainen

Re: A new kind of a math editor?

by Daniel Thies -
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Hi Mauno,

I took a brief look at some of the code, and it looks like this is using mathJax-node to convert the \(\LaTeX\) to SVG images. This is well supported, but uses nodejs to run it. I would assume the editor is doing other things with nodejs. Supporting this editor would require nodejs on the server, and do not think that there is a lot of enthusiasm for doing this in Moodle.

Converting images could be done in the browser via the usual MathJax script, but it would require a little more work to adapt it, and it may not perform exactly the same. Some of the features may be added to added to Atto easily like the image preview if someone has the desire to do that.

Daniel
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In reply to Daniel Thies

Re: A new kind of a math editor?

by Daniel Thies -
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I just looked at the sample editor rather than the math-demo. It seems that it does work completely in browser with javascript. It should be easy to add the scripts to Moodle activities if you want use it.
The inline display is fairly simple. The MathJax SVG image is inserted into the text with an alt of the equation. A listener is attached to load the math editor when it is click. The image is stored using base64 in the text so saving the test will preserve images for grading. The only difficult part is making sure the text is copied to a form element before submission. 
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In reply to Daniel Thies

Re: A new kind of a math editor?

by Mauno Korpelainen -
Thanks Daniel!

So far our students have simply copied the exercises made with demo editor to moodle (copy-paste) and that way you can copy the whole answer (both text and mathematical notations) - not just one formula. These boxes are actually answer fields in our abitti-exams and each box has a separate editor that saves all content inside it as one answer. It works fine, the answers have mathematical notations in alt tag and the only "downside" is that the images use external urls like
https://math-demo.abitti.fi/math.svg?latex=x%3D%5Cfrac%7B-b%5Cpm%5Csqrt%7Bb%5E2-4ac%7D%7D%7B2a%7D

The svg images look pretty and are visible in editor:
 
x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a} copied from editor with CTRL C - CTRL V

So the easiest solution to use this editor in moodle could be a simple Atto plugin or TinyMCE plugin but world wide using one demo server might not be the best solution (like Forkosh servers using Mimetex and Mathtex in the past). On the other hand copying/sending code (or images) from moodle to a math editor outside moodle (in an iframe) is not the best option.

Answers in Abitti system can't containt html - only text, mathemal notations and images (screenshots) copied from other programs in the system (Libre Office, Geogebra, MarvinScetch, Calculator software,...) Because creating an abitti exam takes some work and playing with usb sticks I usually let students to use their computers and internet freely during lessons and sometimes ask them to save their work to moodle (instead of making homework to paper) to force everybody to practice the tools used in national exams.



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In reply to Mauno Korpelainen

Linux USB-Stick for schools

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Mauno

Thanks a lot for the detailed report. I was excited about the Linux USB-Stick https://www.ylioppilastutkinto.fi/en/matriculation-examination/digital-matriculation-examination.

There is a similar product from Switzerland for some time, for over a decade now. It is in German and used intensively in the German speaking part of Europe. I just added detailed information to the Pädagogisches Forum. See "Lernstick: eine vollständige Lern-, Arbeits­ und Prüfungsumgebung im USB-Stick" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368533 (German).
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