1,721,067 research outputs found
WebTeach: a Cooperative Web Environment for Teaching Science and Technology
No full textIn this paper we illustrate our experience of using the cooperative framework provided by an
extended Wiki Web as a tool for distance teaching of Sciences and Technology.
A Wiki Web is a web site in which pages can be directly edited by users through the usual browser
interface. A simple syntax allows the user to add contents to the web without knowing HTML. The
pages are automatically linked and created whenever a particular pattern is inserted in the text. This
completely removes the \one webmaster syndrome" and focuses the users to cooperatively work on
the web contents.
To teach Sciences or Technology we have extended a Wiki system with a plugin API and developed
several plugins, e.g. to handle LATEX fragments and plots of 2D/3D functions
Detachable Learning Environments for T-learning
No full textIn this paper we present the idea of detachable learning environments, i.e. web pages, containing a few lessons or whole courses, not requiring a synchronous Internet connection to be browsed, edited or to interact with them. We discuss their use in education both as a support system for traditional front lessons, as an interactive cooperative environment that is distributed through strongly asymmetric and sporadic connections and finally as a tool for assembling teaching streams to be delivered through the digital TV (T-learning)
Damage spreading and Lyapunov exponents in cellular automata
No full textUsing the concept of the Boolean derivative we study local damage spreading for one-dimensional elementary cellular automata and define their maximal Lyapunov exponent. A random matrix approximation describes quite well the behavior of “chaotic” cellular automata and predicts a directed percolation-type phase transition. After the introduction of a small amount of noise elementary cellular automata reveal the same type of transition
Automatic correction of C programming exercises through Unit-Testing and Aspect-Programming
No full textWe present a framework for the automatic testing of C Pro-
gramming assignments that is based on Unit tests and Aspect
programming. Students are required to implement a set of C
functions and are given each function’s prototype. Teachers
are required to write unit tests for each function, a ”reference
implementation” of each function and a feedback message for
each test failed. The system applies the unit tests to the code
and replaces a failing function with the corresponding refer-
ence implementation to test also functions depending on the
failed one.
We are developing the system while testing it on the home-
works submitted for two courses: ”Programming 2” and ”Pro-
gramming Laboratory”, delivered during the second term of
first year of our Computer Science MS degree. We present
the design of the system and the issues solved so far to test
4 homeworks (a total of 186 tests run over 28 implemented
functions)
E-learning with WebTeach - a prototype system for exam delivery and on-line teaching
No full textThe WebTeach project has been started in 1999 as a prototype to
handle our exams. At this moment it consists of three main components: WebCheck, handling exam sessions through a web interface,
WebWrite, web based tool for teaching on-line, and WebTest, for the
generation and correction of multiple-choice quizzes.
The system, described in the following pages, is now used by more
than 70 teachers and handles 180 subjects, 800 exams and 5500 students. Despite these figures, the project keeps its prototypical flavor
and it’s improved every day following teachers’ and students’ suggestions.
The system is developed using only free software. It’s possible to
cooperate to its development, adapt it to special needs and use it in
other frameworks.
The following extensions are planned:
• Usage of SMS messages for teacher-student communication,
to be added to the e-mail messages already used.
• Development of a system to collect tests’ results through optical reader/SMS/email/web and development of a graphic
interface for quiz generation.
• Management of class reservation/usage.
• Development of a system which will generate/configure automatically a course, given a simple specification of: -
pre/post requisites of each lesson, - the target knowledge
produced by the course, - the initial/current knowledge of
the single student.
The WebWrite system has been chosen also to teach on-line to jailed students through the “Polo Universitario Penitenziario”
Tiddlywiki in Science education
No full textWe discuss here an ongoing experimentwhich uses ASciencePad [1], an adapted version of Tid-dlyWiki [2] as a support for teaching/learning physics(elementary and advanced) to engineering students.ASciencePad is a “live math notebook” that is editablewith a modern browser and includes a WYSIWYG editorwith mathematical formulas and SVG plots. It allowsalso the inclusion of JavaScript simulations, that can beeasily edited by users and therefore can be used as aplayground for computational experiments. Our graphdrawing extension allows the construction of graph mapsof the learning paths to help the student navigate throughthe notebook topics.This client-side tool is complemented by a wiki-basedserver-side system, for handling files, permissions, andintegrating this tool with an existing distance-teachingframework. Our ASciencePad-based solution may be seentherefore as a “detachable wiki“.Many of the present server-side tools, namely a systemfor generating and managing multiple-choice quizzes, arebeing ported to this new architecture
WEBTEACH: WEB TOOLS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
Full text linkThe authors present the WebTeach system, currently used at the Engineering Faculty, University of Florence, Italy. The system is composed of three parts: WebCheck, a web database interface for test management; WebTest, a multiple-choice quiz generation system; and WebWrite, a collaborative Web publishing tool. WebCheck is used for managing subscriptions to tests and publication of results. It allows teachers to organize exam sessions and students to consult the results of their tests by a web interface. Most of tests are generated using WebTest, which is a suite of Perl libraries and front-end applications for the generation and automatic evaluation of multiple-choice quizzes. Web Write is an implementation of the TWiki system, which appears as a web site where all pages can be edited using a simple syntax, resembling e-mail text. WebWrite is used for publishing didactic material and will become the generic interface-managing tool of the WebTeach system. This system is also used for teaching to jailed students
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
- …
