Summarization Tool for VMT Preliminary Mockups

Murat Cakir2/6/2007

Main design issues

Where to host summarization support?– (1) In the existing w.b., (2) in a separate tab, (3) in a wiki page

When to initiate summarization?– During vs after the session, or both?

How to scaffold the summarization process– Provide instructions in the problem description– Suggest a format for the summary via headings

(need to decide how to word these instructions/headings)– Show example summaries– Ask a user to be the note taker or berry picker

How to motivate groups to summarize their work– Reducing the effort involved (reusing past content is key)– Using summaries as a solution submission process

Makes sense in a school context– Posting summaries to the wiki

Making findings public may encourage kids to provide explanations Can be coupled with a community rating mechanism

Where to host summarization support

Use the existing whiteboard space– [+] reuse existing content; collaborative summaries; ongoing summarization– [-] w.b. space is limited, so summary scaffolds may interfere with problem

solving work Include a dedicated summary tab

– [+] more space, clean organization of content – [-] reusing content requires transferring things across tabs; coordinating

actions across tabs may be difficult Use the wiki space

– [+] reproducing summaries from scratch may be valuable from a pedagogical perspective

– [-] hard to keep track of actions, need to reproduce content, disconnected from the chat space,

Hybrid approaches– Would it be possible to get the best of each option?– Potential key improvements over the previous Fest

Being able to reuse the existing content Being able to do summaries together

Summary tab concept

Summary tab is organized asan additional w.b.

Scaffolding with headings

Flexible organization

(The use of past tense sounds as if this should be done after the session)

Summary tab concept II

Summary tab is implementedas a set of editable text areas

Scaffolding with headings

Not as flexible as the w.b.

(The use of past tense sounds as if this should be done after the session)

Active summarization (scaffolding note taking during the session)

Extracted from our summary help page

The need for additional functionality

These mockups may require additional functionality:– Publishing content to wiki– Note taking support– Easy copy/paste across tabs (if implemented)

Posting summaries to the wiki

Alternative implementations– 1. Snapshot based tool

The selected area will be displayed on the wiki

– 2. Post the entire summary tab to the wiki– 3. Display the wiki page in the tab

Concert chat can only view static pages in a tab

Wiki postingMath Forum PoW: Shotgun Targets

Problem Description

Shotguns shoot a lot of little pellets. A shotgun can be adjusted so that when it's shot at a target, the pellets cover the target evenly. One of the steps in the adjustment process is to "pattern" the shotgun, to see where the pellets are actually going. This often involves shooting at a target about 40" x 40" that's 40 yards away. One kind of target is pictured above. Each of the eight regions inside the large circle has the same area. To check for even distribution, the pellet holes are counted to see if each region contains roughly the same number of hits.If the diameter of the large circle is 30", find the radius of the inner circle to the nearest quarter inch.

Team A’s Solution

10.61 is the radius of the smaller circle

Area of largeOis 225pi

3.14*15^2

225pi/8=88.3125

88.3125*4 equals 353.25 which is the area of the small circle

353.25=3.14r^2/3.14 /3.14112.5=r^210.61=r

A Topic-based organization

Note taking support I

Copy selected chat message to a textbox [-] potential conflict with referencing arrows

Take a note icon is stolen from http://www.iconarchive.com/category/application/kids-icons-icons-by-everaldo.html

1 2

Note taking support II

Append selected chat message to an existing textbox

1 2

Things to decide on

How to provide summary guidelines?– headings, dedicated tabs, or something else?

How should we word the guidelines? What are our pedagogical aims (ongoing/post reflection)?

Shall we setup a generic guideline, or shall we support problem specific guidelines as well?

How to connect summaries and the wiki pages. How to organize posts to the wiki?

– Topic pages, group pages

Extra: Changes to textboxes

The default background color– Should be easily discernable from the rest

Automatically adjusting the size based on what is typed Making the typing actions visible

– [-] increased traffic– [+] can help a lot to prevent conflicts

Worst case: user A starts editing, user B starts typing, A commits changes, then B commits changes. The resulting textbox only includes changes made by B

This will especially be problematic if we use textboxes in summarization in the tabbed version

– [+] can be useful during live demos such as equation manipulation etc.

Extra II: Alternative reference view (make the referenced object more visible)

Extra III: Label toolbar

Geometric objects: Point, perpendicular, angle

We probably don’t need allof these symbols,these are just a few examples providedby latex

We need to decide what extra symbols we need.