New moodle flash question type

I've finally release the first version of my new question type that uses the Student Line Grapher to implement a new Moodle question type that I made to record the answers of students responses to equations and inequality graphs.

My goal was to make a question type that could be adapted to different types of questions depending on the flash module that was used. The possibilities are endless: line graphs, plotting points, graphing shapes and there transformations, polynomial graphs, etc.... The beauty of my design is that it can be easily changed by simply changing the flash module as long as you can make the flash module come up with a text answer.

This version is a first rough draft so I'm hoping to get some good feedback and be able to make lots of improvements.

Checkout the discussion here or if your not a Moodler please post your thoughts.
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=63471

Graphing Resources

I've created a set of resouces that can help you create graphing materials. The were created using Inkscape a open-source vector drawing program. The files are saved as svg, pdf, gif, and png formats. You will find a ready made set of graph paper and individual graphs that can be inserted into word, open office, a web page or where ever you want. I've also provided the original svg files so that you can quickly make any changes that you want.

You can find them on my website at www.woehler.us. Let me know if you find these to be useful.

Student Line Grapher

While working with my Algebra 1 students to try and teach them how to graph lines. I came up with the idea to create a flash module that would work with moodle to record student's graphs. This idea came out of my previous project which was to create a quick way to draw graphs while lecturing.

This module is pretty slick you can use it to teach students how to graph linear inequalities and equality graphs. My other web page explains the details but here are the basics.

Select your line type, which is by default solid for equality next click to points that are on the line. The flash module extends the line to the edge of the graph. If you are going to graph an inequality then click on shading. Click to points on the line and then which side of the line should be shaded.

You will notice that when you select shading you now have the option of two different line types. The dashed line is for inequality graphs.

Here is the really cool part though. When you create the graph, if you set a value in the flashvars variable the equation of the line can be recorded to a form value in the web page which can then be submitted for grading.

I've implemented this version with moodle but I'll post that information later since I'm not using the latest version of moodle and want to cleaned up the code a little bit and make sure that it is compatible with the latest version.

Finished

Well I finally finished my graphing utility. I'm sure there are many cool features that I could add but I don't have time for that at the moment. Please let me know what you think. I've posted a copy at www2.woehler.us/cms/. You can find the flash/exe/hqx version and instructions there.

I hope that this will be a helpful resource to math teachers presenting graphing concepts such as slope intercept form, y-intercept form, standard form, and point slope form or whatever other type of graph you are planning on using. It even works with inequalities.

Teaching graphing

My algebra students are stuggling with the concept of graphing so I've created a couple of Flash modules that facilitate teaching graphs. One of them you can simply put points on the graph by clicking and it will tell you the coordinates on the graph. The other one allows you to click two points on the graph to draw a line segment and change the line segment into an equality or inequality graph.

This post is just to see if there is some interest in these modules. I'm looking for some math teachers out there that might be interesting in testing it out for me and giving me some feedback before I post it for free on the internet.

You can put this module into a powerpoint, show it in a web page, or run it as a program.

Please post a comment if this sounds interesting to you.