Math Facts Effectiveness Study

Students have been using Math Facts for almost a year now and enough information has been collected to determine its effectiveness. Here I will share the data from an couple of anonymous student that has been faithfully using the Math Facts program.

Goals:
Determine if :

• answers are entered faster
  
• accuracy is improved

These goals are based off of a previous Math Facts study that indicated that faster times and better Algebra I scores go together not just better accuracy.

Analysis:
Case Study of Student A:
Student A information:

• Used the Math Facts program for the fall of 2009.
• This student is a good candidate for extra assistance.
• 204 attempts made.
• 184 attempts with a score greater than 70% (note that for the smaller tables 100% is required to get above 70%)
• 2131 questions answered of attempts with final score greater than 70%.
  
• 3.73 second average question response time.
• 3-5 grade level.
  

The graph below shows the students average question response time. Each mark on the graph indicates the average response time that it took to respond to each question in a given attempt. Two outliers have been removed from the graph but are still included in the trendline and trendline equation in the graph below. Their values were 14.9 seconds on 9/2/09 and21.1 seconds on 10/21/09. These values probably have more to do with the students ability to focus on the activity at hand than the ability to do the problems.

Click to enlarge

The problems that student A struggles with can be seen in the table below.

Question Asked	# Incorrect	# Correct	# Answered	% Incorrect
3+4	4	42	46	08.70%
4x2	4	26	30	13.33%
5x2	2	12	14	14.29%
4x3	3	17	20	15.00%
3x3	6	26	32	18.75%

The graph below shows the students response time for the question 3x3. Again one outlier has been included in the calculations but removed from the graph to make the graph more readable. The red marks indicate incorrect responses.

Click to enlarge

Similar to the previous graph the student shows an overall progress towards more faster and accurate responses.

Case Study of Student B:
Student B information:

• Used the Math Facts program during the spring and fall of 2009.
• Average student
  
• 459 attempts made.
• 450 attempts with a score greater than 70% (note that for the smaller tables 100% is required to get above 70%)
• 20233 questions answered of attempts with final score greater than 70%.
  
• 1.47 second average question response time.
• 6-8 grade level.

The table below shows the problems that this student finds most difficult.

Question asked	# Incorrect	# Correct	Total Answered	% Incorrect
4+12	2	9	11	18.18%
9+7	9	40	49	18.37%
8+3	16	60	76	21.05%
3+8	17	53	70	24.29%
7+9	12	36	48	25.00%
8+9	11	30	41	26.83%
9+8	14	30	44	31.82%
4X12	4	8	12	33.33%
3X12	7	6	13	53.85%
5X12	8	3	11	72.73%

A couple of interesting points here are that the accuracy of 3+8 and 8+3 are similar but 9+7 and 7+8 has a difference of 6.63%.

Below is the graph of this students average question response time. Each marker indicates the average response time for that one attempt. Two outliers at about 3.6 and 4 were removed from the graph but not the trendline.

Click to enlarge

From the table above it appears that this student stuggles with 8+9. The graph below indicates this students response times to the question 8+9. The gap between the two sets of data is summer break.

Click to enlarge

As you can also see from the graph the number off incorrect responses has also decreased.

Conclusion:
As you can see from analyzing these students overall and specific question responses they were able to improve Math Fact abilities with the use of my Math Facts program.

Advantages of this Math Facts program:

• Students get immediate visual feedback of whether they got the problem correct or incorrect without it being distracting.
  
• Automated grading
• Record of all information allowing detail analysis.
  
• Visual stimulation of student to do better and complete as many of their multiplication tables as possible.
  

Blended Learning Presentation

As I was browsing the web in search of lesson plans for Scribus I discovered the following presentation at the edubuntu.org Lessons wiki, by JimHutchinson. I thought it was very well done. Thanks for sharing Jim.

• Blended Learning Presentation

New Random Student Selector

I created a new Random Student Selector that is based on Flash instead of server scripting. This should allow the random selections to work faster and reduce the load on my server, providing you with better service. The program works using the same logic as the server scripted version with the added benefit that if a student comes in late you can add their name to the list. They will be entered into the list of selectable names as though they had just answer the last question before they entered the classroom.

It appears that the server scripted version has been very popular. Since I don't particularly care to have advertising when I am using a web page in my classroom I'm going to try an experiment and see if people will donate to keep the ad's off this page.

Classroom in a Blog: A Quick Introduction to Inkscape

In the image below I've outlined the sections of tools that you need to know to help you get up and running with Inkscape.

The numbered list below high lights each of the numbered tools in the image above.

1. New Document, Opening, Printing & Importing
   
   Tools from left to right: New, Open, Save/Save As, Print, Import, and Export
   Inkscape has the ability to open and save a wide variety of file types: svg, PDF, Adobe Illustrator (ai), and more.
   Inkscape can also send files directly to the printer.
   Inkscape can import even more file types that it can open.
   Inkscape can only export one file type - portable network graphic (png).
   
   
2. Zoom tools
   
   Tools from left to right: Zoom to selection, zoom to all objects, and zoom to page.
   
   • The first tool allows you to zoom so that what you currently have selected fills the screen.
   • The second tool zooms so that you can see everything that has been drawn. This can be handy if you are trying to find a missing object.
   • The last tool zooms so that your page fills the page.
   
   
3. Useful dialogs
   
   Dialogs from left to right: Stroke/fill, text, XML, and alignment.
   
   
4. Quick transformations and in-layer ordering
   
   Tools from left to right: Rotate 90 counter clockwise, 90 clockwise, mirror along the vertical axis, mirror horizontal, move to back, move back, move up, and move to front.
   
   
5. Drawing tools
   

   • Select & Transform
     Use to move objects around and change their size and rotation. You can also do a few distortions such as skewing.
     
   • Edit Path
     This tool allows you to readjust key points within an object called nodes.
     
   • Tweak
     Manipulate objects by pushing them around.
     
   • Magnifying glass
     Use this tool if the keyboard shortcuts for zooming in and out aren't enough.
     
   • Square/Rectangle
     
   • 3D Box
   • Circle/Ellipse
   • Star/Polygon
   • Spiral
   • Freehand
   • Bezier curve & straight line tool
     Bezier curves are based on points and how they affect a line. The line drawn does not necessarily pass though the point that controls what a bezier curve line looks like.
     
   • Calligraphy
   • Fill
   • Text
   • Diagram Connect
   • Gradient edit
   • Eye Dropper
     

   
   
6. Drawing area
   The drawing area is all of the white space in the center of the screen referred to as the canvas. The box in the center is a page on the canvas. Because Inkscape is a drawing program not a desktop publishing program such as Scribus, Quark, Adobe InDesign, or MS Publisher, you only get one page to work on.
   
   
7. Color palette
   
   There are two main things to think about with the color palette the fill and stroke. The fill as the name implies is the color inside of an object and the stroke is the outline color. In the image above you can see that with the current tool that is selected I don't have a fill or stroke color selected because N/A appears instead of a color.
   

Coming Next
A lesson that will briefly introduce you to the majority of the tools shown here.

Classroom in a Blog: Inkscape

This blog series will help introduce you to the open source vector base drawing program Inkscape. The title obviously is a spin-off from the well known series by Adobe Systems.

Note: This series is based on Inkscape version 0.46 and newer. Since Inkscape has not yet matured to version 1.0 we will focus only the features that are considered stable. My focus is to have lessons that can be used in the classroom without having to install extras and work around solutions or cause the program to crash.

Here is a rough table of contents for what this series will contain. I will come back and update this with links as I progress.

1. Quick Start
2. Creating and Editing Shapes
3. Selecting & Aligning
4. Transforming Objects
5. Drawing Tools
6. Color and Painting
7. Working with Type
8. Working with Layers
9. XML
10. Combining Inkscape with other Applications
11. SVG
    

Other Reading:
Book/Website: Inkscape: Guide to a Vector Drawing Program

FreeMind in the Classroom

Over the past few days, in my classroom, we have been discussing different ways in which to study information. I introduced my students to concept mapping or mind-mapping.

I had been introduced to Inspiration, by Inspiration Software, a few years ago. I thought it was a pretty interesting program but I did not spend any time using it. I felt that I knew the features of the program, though I did not understand the potential of how it could change the classroom. Later, I came across an Open Source version called FreeMind which can be downloaded from sourceforge.net. My students and I watched a video on mind-mapping the other day and so I installed this software on all of the computers in the lab. Today the students were introduced to the software and asked to make a map or multiple maps of the three sections from their science chapter that we just finished. They picked up the program pretty quickly after showing them only a few features in the program.

I demonstrated the following features to them in the classroom and then let them loose.

• Insert key: add a new child not or branch connected to the parent.
• Shift-enter: add a sibling node or branch that is connected to the same node as as the node selected.
• Changing the text in a node
  
• Right click to access properties such as style and formating.

In my research to relocate this program I did find another program that has some potential called XMind. Both programs are platform independent (Java), open source, and free. I believe each of them have their different strengths and weaknesses. I will be introducing my students to XMind at another point in time at which I will write a quick review about how well it worked.

State Capital Questions for Moodle

In class we have been reviewing the state capitals of the United States of America. We have been using Moodle matching and short answer questions to help learn them. If you would like to use the questions in your Moodle system you can download them at lulu.com "State Capitals of the United States of America"

I've saved the files in the Moodle XML format all you need to do is import them into your question bank and you will have all of the state capitals as short answer questions. To help the students learn the capitals at first you can create a Random Short-Answer matching question type. Here's a screen shot of what they look like.