How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
Number of replies: 21
This is the second of three posts that I will make to this forum. All begin with "How do you deal with the challenge of..."

I'm preparing a talk on "Moodle for math and science" for the Southern (US) Moodle Moot 07 in February. Like most teachers, I work in a vacuum except for occasional contact with a few other (likewise isolated) teachers, and with the moodle.org forums. So I rely on YOU to tell me how you're dealing these challenges.

Drawing graphs and diagrams in Moodle is a challenge for the teacher, but a much greater challenge for the student. Here are my thoughts.

As a teacher, I can create a drawing in a generic drawing program (like Open Office Draw), or I can use a program specialized for math, (like GeoGebra, for graphing and 2-D geometric constructions), or I can use a screen capture program to capture someone else's diagram or graph. I can also use a pen tablet and draw the image by hand. In each case, I must export an image from the program and upload it to my course so that I can link to it from an activity or resource. There are many steps, and most of them are made outside of Moodle.

Incidentally, I recently discovered how to embed dynamic GeoGebra worksheets as an alternative to static images. This is a very appealing option.

The student has access to many of the same diagramming and graphing tools, but unfortunately has nowhere to store the images, unless they are embedded in a document submitted as an "upload assignment." The student cannot, for example, include a diagram in an essay question on a quiz or lesson, or in a journal entry, online assignment, blog entry, etc. (Admittedly, a single image can be included in a forum post).

What's the solution for the student? Again, is it paper and pencil?

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In reply to John Isner

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Karl Sarnow -
I create graphs using a CAS or some other software. The images can be saved and uploaded to the Moodle course, either as a reults of a test or in specific folder. I must admit that I only used a test so far but the problem for you is obviously that only the teacher can see the result and not the pupil. If you want to publish pupils results like in a gallery, there must be some teacher activities in publishing pupils results in a sperate web page (Either in the course or externally).

Karl

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In reply to John Isner

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Jeff Forssell -
I hadn't tried GeoGebra before. It seems quite nice. Wasn't able to opened saved files, but I think that Java has problems with paths containing " " (spaces).
From their wiki I was able to find example of GeoGebraq used interactively with JavaScript in web page. That seemed quite useful for webcourses.
I have been using PAD (Physics Applets for Drawing) to fill the "interactivity gap" when questions were about making diagrams, vectors and so forth. http://www.wku.edu/pads/

Unfortunately, for you, most of my stuff is in Swedish. But here are some links:

http://demo.cfl.se/tut/tutmab.pl/MA1202W/MaC/StudArb/GrafEkvLsnVector.htm

http://demo.cfl.se/tut/tutmab.pl/MA1202W/MaC/StudArb/MaCSA1_7.htm

http://demo.cfl.se/tut/tutmab.pl/MA1202W/MaC/StudArb/SA2_2c.htm

http://kurs.cfl.se/javaapplets/Fysik/java/PAD/SA/Medelhastighetb.htm

(You may be asked for a password, but it is not needed)

These are some vector examples from the PAD homepage that I have put more feedback into:

http://gymnint.cfl.se/gymint/fysik/Physlets/PAD/tvTable/tv_bord.htm

http://gymnint.cfl.se/gymint/fysik/Physlets/PAD/optik/opticVector.htm

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In reply to John Isner

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Aaron Woehler -
GeoGebra looks interesting.

I've created a Flash graphing tool that can create linear lines and inequalities. I could easily alter it to submit the equation of the linear line or inequality. If there is enough interest maybe I could add this as a question type for quizzes.

You can find the Flash file on my website: http://www2.woehler.us/cms/?q=node/131

If nothing else you could use it to quickly create inequality graphs for your screen shots. Let me know if you think this has some potential.
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In reply to Aaron Woehler

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
Hello Aaron,
I tried your flash demo. It works nicely. But how exactly can a student "submit" a graph produced by your Flash file? Say the student is doing an online assignment which asks the student to graph the inequality 3x + 4y > 7. The student makes the graph. OK, now what?
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Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Aaron Woehler -
I designed this with the idea of presenting graphing concepts to students. After I finished I got the idea to try and integrate it with moodle or any web user.
Currently I don't have any client/server interaction, but when a graph is drawn I do have all of the information that could be sent to the server for grading such as the slope, y-int, etc... to the server. If people are interested in this I am open to ideas of the best way of implementing this: SCORM, Quiz questions, etc....
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In reply to Aaron Woehler

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
In a SCORM implementation, the information you collect from the Flash could be passed back to Moodle. Moodle will store such information in its database, but that's all. I am not aware of any Moodle mechanisms for displaying or otherwise making use of such information. As a consequence, there would be no way for teachers to review the results. I believe that SCORMs generally do their own grading (they compare the student's slope and y-intercept to the "correct" slope and y-intercept) and simply pass a score back to Moodle.
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Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Aaron Woehler -
I've done a little bit of experimenting and come up with one possible solution.

Insert the Flash file into a short answer question and feed the question ID to the flash file as parameter.

When the student creates the graph, Flash could enter the formula into the text box. I'm not sure how to get the callback function to connect flash and javascript within Moodle though. Macromedia's example used the onLoad event to call a function to do this. The flash file could also call a function that would disable and hide the textbox, so that the student wouldn't see the formula. There isn't any way to insert JavaScript into a question because of security reasons correct?

The other option that may be better would be to develop a new question type that would deal specifically with graphing.
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In reply to Aaron Woehler

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
I'm way out of my depth here. It sounds like an interesting approach. You should run this idea by the people in the quiz forum and get an expert opinionsmile
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In reply to John Isner

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Claude Ostyn -

Maybe this is not exactly what you are talking about, but there are some neat JavaScript only graphing libraries. For example, see the Walter Zorn libraries such as http://www.walterzorn.com/jsgraphics/jsgraphics_e.htm 

With such a library, you can also just record the source data (as a string response for a interaction in SCORM, for example) and use it to recreate the graph at will. For example, with the function grapher you only need to record the parameters. No Flash, no Java, no need for server side graphic synthesis.

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In reply to Claude Ostyn

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
Thank you, it is exactly what I'm talking about! Walterzorn was on my list of things to investigate.

You're a SCORM expert and I have only played with SCORM, so please answer this question. If a walterzorn grapher is wrapped in SCORM, and javascript captures the parameters of the graph drawn by the student, what exactly does it do with them? The cms data model has elements that would seem appropriate for storing them (e.g., cmi.interactions.n.learner_response), but as far as I know, Moodle only stores (name,value) pairs in the scorm_scoes_track table, and does not provide a teacher interface for examining the learner response (the SCORM activity View Reports page shows only the grade and time spent in the activity).
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Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Claude Ostyn -

IMHO fact that Moodle does not provide a way to examine the SCORM tracking data such as interaction responses is a problem that can only be resolved by adding functionality to Moodle. If the data is recorded in the database, you should be able to get to it through some custom reports. Note that there is an IEEE standard (1484.11.3) that specifies an XML schema for this data, so at the very least it would be nice if Moodle could capture the data in an XML instance and then make that available. The XSD defined in the standard is freely available (but one has to pay for a copy to read the standard text to really understand how it works). Using a standard schema also means that it should be easy to create XSLs to generate pretty reports. 

Until and unless the LMS supports meaningful recording and review of SCORM data, you're kind of stuck with hacks to try to provide a way in the SCO itself to do it. One slightly risky technique (because reusability of the content on another server becomes problematic) is to use HTTP or XMLHTTPRequest to invoke your own server site service to record the data. A perverse idea, if your Moodle server also happen to support a secure version of formmail, is that you can in theory post the the data from inside a frame in the SCO to a server-based formmail handler that will email it to the instructor. I'm sure other Moodle users have already figured out ways to do more elegant workarounds for stuff other than SCORM content.

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In reply to Claude Ostyn

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
Claude,
Thank you. That is exactly the kind of clarification I was hoping for.
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In reply to Claude Ostyn

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
Claude,
Thank you. That is exactly the kind of clarification I was hoping for.
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In reply to John Isner

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
I have found a viable solution to the student's problem (see original post).

The main problem, as I see it, is the lack of file attachments in the activities that are mostly used by science and math teachers: essay questions in quizzes and lessons, online assignments and/or journal entries. If these activities had file attachments, here's an example of how they might be used:

A geometry test has some multiple choice questions and an essay question. The essay question asks the student to do a particular geometric construction, explaining each of the steps. The student writes the steps in the essay question text and does the construction in GeoGebra. The student attaches the GeoGebra worksheet (a ggb file) to the essay question before submitting.

You can come up with other examples where the student draws a diagram, graphs a function, or creates a molecule using the Jmol editor. But without a file attachment capability in the activity, what is the student to do?

The HSU file manager block (also known as "My Files") offers a solution. I have experimented with this in Moodle 1.6.3 and it works just fine.

Consider the example of the geometry construction essay question:
  • The student creates the ggb file and uploads it to his personal file area
  • The student checks the box "share with teacher"
  • The student copies the link location (right mouse button) and pastes it into the essay question, possibly as a hyperlink:
Here is my ggb file.
  • When the teacher goes to grade essay question, he clicks on the link and downloads the file (other file types may be viewed directly in the browser0.
This is obviously less efficient than being able to attach the file directly to the activity, and it involves installation of a 3rd-party block. However it does solve the problem.

Incidentally, I filed MR-8229 "Allow students to attach files to essay questions, online assignments, and journal entries". All the social activites allow attachments, why shouldn't the traditional activities allow them?




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Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Wilfred Wright -
Does anyone know how to get drawings (images) in the feedback section of a question? Feedback interprets Latex notation well but seems to fail with drawings. I am trying to get a simple triangle in the feedback hat shows how to compute an angle.

Thanks


W
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Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Cristina Berisso -

Great forum topic. The graphing tool I include for my students in all my Internet and hybrid math courses, is a program called MathStuCalc. It is a very complete and easy to use on-screen graphing calculator that helps the students in the plotting and in the analysis of graphs of functions; but what is very important: It does NOT do the algebra for them. I do not accept any longer the use of the standard TI’s hand held graphing calculators in any of my classes, and require my students to use the on-screen calculator which for them is a huge savings since they get MathStuCalc for free.

The great advantage for me as on-line instructor is that the student can easily obtain either a JPG or a bitmap of any of the activities they performed (just by right hand clicking on the calculator’s key-pad and selecting “Save Display as…”). The image comes also with the expression the student typed, so for me it is very easy to find any syntax error and guide them to correct it. The student attaches the image to an e-mail or pastes it on a document that is sent to me or loads it in an assignment. Here I am appending some images of different activities:

a) creating a table of x/y values , plotting them and checking with the use of the graphing tool the correctness of their work by plotting the actual function and seeing that it goes through the points.

plotting a quadratic function

b) Studying modulation of the cosine function.

modulation

c) Finding the best fitting exponential expression to a set of data points.

exponential regression

d) Visualization of area between curves for my calculus classes.

area between curves

The program was written by Greg Mushial (gmushial@gmdr.com)(a PhD in Math and Delphi programmer). He allows free student usage of the program for a full year. So what I do at the beginning of each semester is to get from his website the most recent version of the program, I place it in my website, and give a link to my students inside the course. The students can download it to their computers or run it directly from my site. The “year” clock starts at the time I download it, so the students can use it with no problem for the full semester.

Here is a link to the info page (which has the 1-year free trial download link). I have no idea if it will run in a Linux machine (and I am curious to find if it does –so please let me know), but I know it runs great in all my Windows laptops and desktop computers at home and at the School.

Enjoy!

Cristina

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In reply to Cristina Berisso

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by John Isner -
Christina,
Thanks for the great resource and for those screen shots. I'll definitely look into MathStuCalc.
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In reply to Cristina Berisso

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Thomas Burkholder -
Thanks for the information about this tool. It works pretty well in Wine emulator under Linux. I was able to save the images and use all of the features.
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In reply to Cristina Berisso

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Sjaak Kamerling -
Thanks for introducing this beautiful graphing tool! I have a question. I put it in my Moodle environment and when the student clicks the link, he can choose, just as you told, between downloading and running. Is it also possible that the student cannot choose and that the tool only can be run?
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In reply to Sjaak Kamerling

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by Cristina Berisso -

Hello Sjaak,

The pop-up window that asks the student if s/he wants to run or download is most likely a "Security Warning" window from "Windows." Since an "exe" file is being invoked over the Internet, Windows is alerting the user about it, and making sure that the user understands the risks of running software that is not in the user's computer. I don't think that can be changed from anywhere else but (may be) from the users' computer at the security level.

If the student downloads the program in his/her own computer, then s/he can access it just by double clicking in the icon, and no questions will be asked. Most of my students prefer to download it, I am not sure why; may be they want to be able to use it even if they are not with an Internet connection...

Sorry I could not help with what you wanted sad.

Cristina

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In reply to Cristina Berisso

Re: How do you deal with the challenge of drawing graphs and diagrams?

by William Corwin -

I have some examples and discussion at

http://www.issi1.com/corwin/sniffers/combine.html

on how to use MathML, Jipsen's TeX like notation, and  .png in

transparent layers.  Also Jipsen's graphs can be used in the

same web page.

Your MS Internet Explorer plugin configuration can be checked at

http://www.issi1.com/corwin/sniffers/detect_plugin.xml

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