Rathmann W, Wassermann A (2018)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Conference contribution, Abstract of lecture
Publication year: 2018
Conference Proceedings Title: Book of Abstracts
Event location: ISEC (Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra)
In e-Learning environments, the Learning Management Systems (LMS) play a central role.
The LMS Moodle and ILIAS are widely used at universities and Universities of Applied
Sciences. But even nowadays, it is still a challenge to use the possibilities given by digital
materials to create learning content which offers more than a classical textbook. Several
tools are available to show, explain and dynamically explore mathematical concepts,
among them are CoCalc (former SageMathCloud), SageCell, CDF-Player, JSXGraph and
GeoGebra. It is still quite common that content for a lecture is provided inside the local
LMS, while the learner has to open another platform or software to use the dynamic
mathematical tools for exploration of the content. In our contribution (talk or poster) we
will show our approaches to include dynamic mathematics inside LMS.
In particular, we use JSXGraph for dynamic 2D diagrams and the SageMathCell for a wide
range of mathematical aspects. JSXGraph is a JavaScript library, which is quite easy to use
and which offers the possibility to include user interactions via HTML-forms. The
advantage is that the computations are done in the browser on client-side. On the other
hand, SageMathCell has a huge variety of tools already included, like Maxima, R, Octave
or Python. Furthermore, it is very easy to show 3D-diagrams. This is made possible by
executing the computation on a remote server, which has to be connected from the content.
We include JSXGraph and SageMathCell in classical HTML-Pages as media content and
through dedicated plug-ins for the LMS Moodle and ILIAS. During the ”Mathematics for
Engineers” (part 1-3) we provide additional material for several topics, e.g. series, (un)-
constrained optimization, integration, parametrization of curves and surfaces or differential
equations. We see the advantage that the diagrams will become an integral part of the
learning modules and the learning unit does not look like patchwork.
Further, the learners can focus on the content and do not have to bring additional software
or to login in a second learning platform. During presence lectures the lecturer can use the
same LMS as the learnersdo for their follow-up work.
For JSXGraph, there is a plug-in for Moodle, for the usage of SageMathCell inside ILIAS
the first author could initiate the development.
APA:
Rathmann, W., & Wassermann, A. (2018, June). Dynamic Mathematics in Learning Management Systems. Paper presentation at 19th SEFI-MWG European Seminar on Mathematics in Engineering Education, ISEC (Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra).
MLA:
Rathmann, Wigand, and Alfred Wassermann. "Dynamic Mathematics in Learning Management Systems." Presented at 19th SEFI-MWG European Seminar on Mathematics in Engineering Education, ISEC (Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra) 2018.
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