# Maths & Moodle #2

So where are we now?

I have opened negotiations/a dialogue with the HOD Maths in my school to discuss how we might use moodle to enhance what his department already offers. This HOD runs a tight ship and he and his teachers work very hard so he is understandably cautious before signing them up to anything that might take time to develop.

Currently they all use IWB software very well and share some of the resources (flipcharts) they make with other teachers, mostly new teachers because they all like to work in a particular way.

The ideas at the moment are to make skeletal moodle courses that position the learning with HW expectations and such through a series of lessons laid out on the moodle course. These would have direct reference to the text books and resources currently being used. The course would be tagged by topic so it would remain relevant to different year groups, e.g. Y9 top set doing some GCSE stuff.

My first post outlined an idea for students making screencasts with audio to model high-end A Level Maths work for younger students, maybe those that are struggling or new to the course. The Maths Department run a succession of surgeries for younger years to attend which are run by 6th Form. I am going to get the 6th Formers working on making these screencasts. I have in store an A4 grapgics tablet (awaiting arrival of Art computers). I thought this might be a good tool to create ther screencasts with. A group of three or four students sit round a table and solve a problem in calculas or mechanics. They discuss as they go each step by step action including mistakes. The pen would be passed from hand-to-hand to demonstrate the individual step by the person who suggested it. Microphone on the table too to record what the students are discussing as the problem develops. Possibly use an ActivSlate to do this too. The software might well be ActivStudio as it has the drawing potential but could easily be any graphics application.

I intend to trial this approach in March.

Any thoughts on how to improve it or other tools to use are welcomed as always.

## 2 thoughts on “Maths & Moodle #2”

1. If you eventually decide to start including notes, etc… in Moodle, then you’ll want to be able to get equations to display. I suggest embedding images using http://www.sitmo.com/latex.

Also as an alternative to ActivSlate, you could try Camstudio. Free screen recording software, very handy. Would record the audio track at the same time.

Dave

2. Moodle New User says:

You can get the equations to display natively in Moodle without the need for third party software, however there is a learning curve.

You can use the TeX Filter in Moodle to automatically create the images on the fly in Moodle,

E.g. Turn on the TeX filter in Moodle, then type: $$\sqrt{x + y}$$

You can type this anywhere, webpage, label, topic summary anywhere you have the HTML Editor.

Im not sure where you can get a complete list of TeX Filter alternatives but there must be one lol

Possible Sources:

Not sure which of these will work in Moodle, but it does use LaTex so should all work. It basically converts the text to an image on the fly and then links back to the text so that anyone else can see it and use it.