MathCap was developed by Light Speed Solutions for use at Foothill College.
MathCap allows instructors to:
 | Build custom courseware from published courses
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| Provide assignments to students with tighter control on start and end times
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| Coordinate student assignments
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| Track student progress
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| Analyze student responsiveness in real time
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| Provide feedback to students regarding their answers
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MathCap allows students to perform their assignments from anywhere over the Web, which presented several unique development challenges to:
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Ensure two students will not be asked the same questions
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Ensure the student does not log onto multiple computers (e.g., practice on one machine and do the assignment on another)
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Track the number of attempts so that students start where they left off
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Allow the instructor to lock down a particular class to prohibit students from working on assignments during the lecture
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One of the most unique features of MathCap is the ability to translate a string into mathematical
representation as the student types. This allows them to visualize the solution better. As the
student types each character, the graphical representation shows the mathematical format.
Once the student logs in, they see the list of their current enrolled courses.
When students open an assignment, they see all the sections in that assignment. This screen shows
the status of each part of the assignment in terms of attempts, tries, best score, and points scored.
It also shows they have started the part, finished it, etc. The students can start their work from
where they left off with the auto save feature.
Once students open the part, questions appear based on the courseware design and students’ prior
history with subject, as well as their ‘attempt and try’ number.
All the data including concepts and skills, examples, problem statements and answers are defined
as fields in the database where the course administrator can make modifications.
After the student types in their answers, MathCap provides feedback based on their answer (defined
in database for various scenarios).
This application was designed from the ground up with Iron Speed Designer. Another team tried
to write the application in Visual Studio, but was unsuccessful. Iron Speed Designer’s ability
to automatically adjust to an evolving data model helped us tremendously as we iteratively refined
MathCap’s requirements.
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