Group Members

Alex Jones Founder
Michael O'Dell Teachers' client
Brendan Luchen Students' client
Ben Isserlis Network backend

Project Description

My goal for this project is to create and distribute a prototype for a project idea that I have. I'm hoping to get feedback and functionality requests in regards to the prototype. In the end, I hope to create a final design document that will be able to be used along with my prototype to create a useful teacher tool that will assist teachers in understanding more about their students knowledge.

Future goals

Eventually, this project is going to be a program for the teacher to use to test students on their knowledge of math. The results will then be displayed to the teacher. The results will include things like % of users that answered the question correctly. A graphical display of what all of the submitted answers were and how many of each student picked that answer. The average time of student answers. And finally, a graphical display of all the students in the activity that when hovering over any particular student, will show the individual statistics about the student. This will help the teacher learn quickly what the weak points of the class as a whole are, as well as each individual student. With this knowledge the teacher easily determine what topics require more time for the students to learn. Teachers will be able to run the activity and students will be able to join. Hopefully we'll figure a way to efficiently connect somewhere between 10-15 students to each teacher. Also, currently the project will call for the teacher to input the question, answer, and amount of time to be given to the students to answer. Ideally the schoolserver.rit.edu will be able to host 'packets' of pre-made questions that the teacher can download and use.

For Teachers

If you are a teacher and want to evaluate my project, please either click here or look just below to run the prototype. It will launch in the same window, so when you're done hit the back button to get back to this page. Please read the prototype notes as it explains what each screen is for. Once you're done running it, please go here to discuss it (or once again look below). The latest version is where you would add your input. If you need any help or would just prefer to individually contact me feel free to send me an email at acj3840@rit.edu

Prototype/Project Files/Git

Git Public clone URL: git://git.sugarlabs.org/popquiz/mainline.git
Latest Flash Prototype
Discuss the prototype here
For a directory of the old versions look here

Prototype Notes

A few things about my prototype. The final program will be in Python; the prototype is in flash because I know Actionscript and I'm able to quickly make a prototype with it. It's designed to get across the ideas of possible functionality, not actually be a fully working completely accurate prototype. I've hard coded a lot of stuff which won't be in the actual program. Please evaluate it based on what it implies it would/could do, rather than what it actually does (example: numbers for percentage are wrong, but implies that they would be displayed and displayed correctly). Things to note about it are as follows:
- The first screen is what the teacher would see, and have the opportunity to input a question, input up to 4 answers, as well as select the correct answer. They would then click on answer to send the question out to the students.
- The second screen is what the student would see after the teacher submits a question. The teacher's question is displayed as well as a timer and all of the possible answers submitted by the teacher. It currently only supports 4 but I'd like to allow the teacher to determine how many possible choices there are. When the timer runs out, an answer is submitted regardless, otherwise the student can just input an answer and send/submit it. Currently I have the problem of the correct answer still being selected, I cannot figure out how to fix it in flash right now, but that won't be the case in the final version of the activity.
- The 3rd and 4th screens are both for the teacher. The 3rd screen is the general statistics of the class: Percent that got it correct, the number of students that selected each answer, the average time it took them to answer. The 4th screen is a representation of the class room organized by the name of the XO per student. The teacher can hover over the XO symbol to see the XO's name immediately, and if they continue to hover over it (like in the XO user interface) more information about that particular XO will be displayed such as what answer was selected, and the exact time it took them to answer.
Please see the related pictured below as well

Pictures/Concept Art

Class%20Screen.png
^^This is a concept for the final screen in the prototype. It will have the XO names right below the symbol, and the symbols will be highlighted red or green based on whether or not they answered correctly. Hovering over the XOs for a little bit will then show additional information like the last screen in the prototype. There should be back buttons added to go back to the previous screen as well as a 'ask another question' button and a 'end questioning' button.


student_client.png
The current interface for students is minimal but functional.

Milestones

1) Learn Python/Get GroupMembers

Need
 - Know python and have dev environment set up
 - Get group members
Date
 - To be done by end of RIT's winter break (1/4/2010)

2) Create Student Interface

Need
 - Able to accept input from user
 - Transition from screen to screen smoothly
 - Gathers all of the desired information easily
Date
 - To be done withing a week of teacher's interface (1/19/2010)

3) Create Teacher Interface

Need
 - Able to accept input from user
 - Transitions from screen to screen smoothly
 - Stores all the information in a format easily sent over networks
 - Able to display all of the class information regardless of number of students (up to 15)
Date
 - To be done within 2 weeks of being back from break (1/26/2010)

4) Get Networking working

Need
 - Teacher is able to create and share activity
 - Students are able to join activity
 - Information is able to be passed from student XO to teacher XO
Date
 - To be as done as possible by end of class (Week of 2/22/2010)

5) Test

Need
 - Multiple tests in many different situations
 - Feedback from community on usefulness and what else is desired
Date
 - As long as there is support for the project

6) Add features

Need
 - Features to be added will determine needs
Date
 - Needs will determine dates

Recent Updates

1/27/10

We solidified our goals and plans for this quarter. Within the next week, we plan to have a minimal but functional application.

  • The student interface will just show an image while waiting for an update from the teacher.
  • The teacher's interface will first be assumed to be used on the XO. It will immediately open the question-creation dialog, followed by a waiting screen similar to the students'. When all students have responded, text statistics will be shown.
  • The network backend will be kept as modular as possible to interface with other tools in the future.
  • Question: will this tool be used for actual testing, or less formal evaluation?

Other notes

The end goal for this project currently (for me) is to end up with a final design document for a project that the community has deemed useful and necessary. If you're interested in helping me, or working on the actual implementation after the design doc has been created, let me know. If you have any questions or concerns or requests please please PLEASE let me know so I can address them as quickly as possible.

Contacts

IRC Server: irc.freenode.net
IRC Channel: #popquiz

Alex Jones email: acj3840@rit.edu
IRC: Boe08
^^frequently on #sugar

Michael O'Dell email: michael.s.odell@gmail.com <br\> IRC: modell <br\>

Brendan Luchen email: bml4633@rit.edu <br\> IRC: Cheezmeister

Ben Isserlis E-mail: Google Mail account bisserlis. IRC: bisserlis