Stories

Monday October 05, 2009 | Mathematics 201

Making IT and Mathematics Compute!

François Laflèche Teacher, Cégep de l'Outaouais Line Raymond Teacher, Cégep de l'Outaouais

A story which appeared on the French side of Profweb with the title Ça clique en mathémaTIC last June by our colleagues at Cégep de St-Félicien described an interesting use of DECclic and Maple. This information inspired teachers in the Mathematics Department at Cégep de l'Outaouais to present their own teaching techniques. Far from comparing two platforms or two programs, the goal of this story is to explain the process which led to another option and to permit colleagues faced with the choice of selecting a platform to learn about a plug-in for some platforms which creates an invaluable tool for teachers of science and math.

... a plug-in for some platforms which creates an invaluable tool for teachers of science and math.Several years ago, the Department of Mathematics began researching an educational platform. Our criteria for selection included simplicity, wide selection of applications and flexibility to adapt to the varied needs of the members of our department. Adapting our teaching to the requirements of a platform was pedagogically out of the question. We explored several options, but were rapidly seduced by Moodle.

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Moodle was created by a teacher for teachers. As it is open-source, it didn't take a long time for the entire world to begin collaborating to improve it and to rapidly correct its few faults. Today, Moodle is used in 208 countries and translated into 76 languages. In Quebec, more and more universities are adopting Moodle (Concordia, UQO, UQAM, UQAC, Université de Sherbrooke, Polytechnique...). The Swiss site Moostic demonstrates a course from the viewpoint of the teacher and of the student.

The wide variety of activities available on Moodle includes the insertion of videos, various types of documents, links, homework assignments, forums with RSS feeds, diaries, self-correcting tests, surveys, activity calendars for the cegep, the course and each student as well as personal messages to students, separation into distinct groups and e-mail follow-up for personal messages, forum messages and grade revision. Creating a course with Moodle is intuitive and 'doable' for even the most confirmed luddite.

Moodle was created by a teacher for teachers.Although our students do appreciate having all of their course documents in one place as well as the links to supplemental activities, it is Moodle's forums that have garnered the most appreciation. Asking questions 24/7 and getting a response in writing is a real learning tool and an incentive for collaboration.

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In mathematics, we had a particular problem which was mathematical notation. For several years, we either scanned our written solutions to insert them into forums or developed approximations using letters such as Sxdx, V2 instead of

We didn't want to impose macrocommands on students such as with the program LaTeX and it was for that reason that we turned to the Spanish plug-in Wiris, an on-line calculator using Java. It doesn't have the power of symbolic calculus software, but it meets the needs of most of our courses. Best yet, Wiris installs in Moodle allowing the display of equations as is and an integral calculator within the course site. If this wasn't enough, Wiris, like Moodle, is free!

You are cordially invited to discover both Wiris and Moodle on the ‘Divers-Wiris' at college's website.

Comments by readersReact to this text

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Wiris

Wiris n'est plus gratuit, mais le coût de sa licence est plus qu'abordable considérant qu'il s'agit d'un éditeur d'équation, d'un logiciel de calcul symbolique et qu'il fournit un module permettant de générer des exerciseurs dans Moodle.

Line Raymond, Professeur, Cégep de l'Outaouais [2011-2-28]

le site

suite...Le site du centre d'aide en mathématiques du CEGEP de l'Outaouais... http://moodle2009.cegepoutaouais.qc.ca/course/view.php?id=21&edit=1&sesskey=J4IwAhmXgr François

François Laflèche, professeur...à la retraite..., Cégep de l'Outaouais [2011-2-28]

Wiris Quizzes

Depuis cette publication sur prof-Web beaucoup d'eau a passé sous les ponts! Nous avons continué notre travail avec Wiris... et ce dernier est maintenant inclus dans les tests Moodle ! Ce qui veut donc dire que l'on peut construire, dans Moodle avec l'aide de Wiris, des tests utilisant les notions de mathématiques (créant des questions où les constantes seront aléatoires) et le tout interprété par Wiris! Pour en avoir un aperçu, toujours en construction, vous pouvez vous rendre sur le site ci-dessus... ou dessous??? Enfin, je peux donc faire ce que j'ai toujours voulu créer...

François Laflèche, professeur...à la retraite..., Cégep de l'Outaouais [2011-2-28]

Toutes mes félicitations

Toutes mes félicitations pour cette démarche d'intégration des TIC dans l'enseignement des mathématiques. Surtout l'expérimentation de la plate-forme Moodle... que je ne connais pas (mais dont l'existence ne m'était pas inconnue). Votre démarche m'incite (une bouffée d'air frais...) à explorer cette plate-forme. En fait... j'y vais de ce pas......

Errol Poiré, enseignant, Cégep de Thetford [2009-10-05]

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