Chugging Along

The summer classes ended last May 21. I distributed the course cards on that day and accompanied my daughter Eveth as she finished her other enrollment-related activities (going to the clinic, activating her CSB Infonet account, having her ID picture taken). After that, we returned to EGI and picked up her two sisters and we all went to MOA. We watched Shrek 3 and ate lunch at Jollibee. We went home after dropping by PowerBooks.

I stayed at home on May 22 and was with Eveth again at CSB on May 23 for her frosh orientation. I foresee having to do this "managing" for a couple of weeks :-)

In the meantime, I continue to hammer at my course materials preparation activities. Since I am doing most of the work using OpenOffice.org, I am listing here some related notes:

1. I can now type the "math code" directly on the page, highlight it with the mouse and, with a click of the Formula button, automagically transform the highlighted text to the desired format.
• To place the Formula button in the, for example, Standard Toolbar,
1. Go to View > Toolbars > Customize...
2. Choose the Toolbars tab.
3. Choose Standard in the Toolbars dropdown list.
4. Click the Add... button.
5. Select Insert in Category and Formula (the one with square root of a as icon) in Commands.
6. Click Add and then Close.
7. You can click on the Up or Down arrows to place the icon in your desired position in the toolbar.
8. Click OK.
• To invoke the Formula command via a shortcut key, say CTRL+M,
1. Go to View > Toolbars > Customize...
2. Select the Keyboard tab.
3. In the Shortcut Keys box, scroll down until you see "Ctrl+M" and click on it once to highlight it.
4. In the Category box, select "Insert".
5. In the Function box, select the second "Formula" listing.
6. Now click on the button up in the right that says Modify, then click on OK.
   
2. I can use the Color command to change the color of my formula. Here is a sample code: color red {x^2 + 2 x - 1 = 0}. The available colors are white, black, cyan, magenta, red, blue, green and yellow.
   
3. The secant and cosecant functions are typeset in italics. To make them appear similar to the other trigonometric functions, I can type either "func sec" or "nitalic csc".
4. I wanted to find out how to align multiple equations by aligning on the equal signs. Stacks and matrices are possible solutions. But matrices are better.
   
5. I came across OOoLaTeX, which allows integration of TeX and OpenOffice.org. I tried the Cygwin on Windows XP setup but can't seem to get it going. I have written to the author of the macro author but have not received a reply yet.
   

Administering Quizzes In Moodle

As I give quizzes to my students via Moodle, I have been taking notes and here are a few:

• Review all items before opening the quiz. You do not want the correct answer to be missing among the choices in a Multiple Choice type question!
  
• The default quiz setting has Adaptive mode active. This allows the students to make several attempts at choosing the correct answer with a penalty given for every wrong attempt. I am not sure I like this feature. It could be nice for some scenarios. But for now, whenever possible, I just give the students partial points for choosing a wrong answer. For example, in a Multiple Choice type question, I assign a 25% score for each wrong choice so it doesn't become an all or nothing affair. I cannot do this though with, for example, the Short Answer type. I am thinking instead to give points to "nearly correct" answers, e.g. "proceed" for "proceeds".
  
• Yes, shuffling questions and answers will minimize cheating. But for good measure, divide the quiz into pages (5 per page is good) and walk around the computer laboratory if you are having the quiz there.
• Emphasize, repeatedly if need be, that they should not click the "Submit all and finish" button until they are really done answering the test and have reviewed all their answers. They should, on the other hand, press the "Save without submitting" button from time to time so that they will not lose their answers in case something unexpected happens; for example, the computer shutting down because they managed to kick the UPS.
• If in the eClassroom, talk first about the fact that you will be using Moodle and that Moodle runs on any browser, implying that it can run on any Internet browser. Next, talk about the Ubuntu Linux operating system, the panels on the GNOME desktop, and the shortcut to the Mozilla Firefox browser. Ask them to open the Mozilla Firefox browser and to type the DLS-CSB Moodle URL in the Navigation toolbar. Talk about logging in, changing password, various quiz setups, submitting the quiz for checking, logging out and shutting the computer unit down.
• For those who left their calculators, you can ask them to use the GNOME Calculator (Scientific mode).
• Provide the students with a list of formulas they will need to use.
  
• Once any one student attempts a quiz, you cannot add or remove questions anymore. But you can actually edit existing ones!
• Do not include the correct answers in what the students will see upon submission, as they may pass these on to their seatmates. Showing their responses and the corresponding grades are OK. They can navigate between pages as they do this. Clicking the Continue button will show them summary information on quizzes taken. Clicking the Continue button again brings them to the Main page. Once there, and if they have used up their attempts, clicking on the link to the quiz will just bring them to this summary.