My involvement in the VMT project
As a Graduate Student in the Online Master’s program in the IST department at Drexel University, my participation in the project is for an “Independent Study” under the guidance of Prof. Gerry Stahl.
Research efforts
The Independent Study will involve the preliminary design of a software system to support the online collaborative solution of math problems by K-12 students. The study will include –
- A literature review of commercial, open source and research prototype software
- Conceptual Design
- Low-fidelity prototyping
- HCI evaluation
Research Report
Click here to see my research report:
http://iisweb.cis.drexel.edu/stahl/vmt/Rajini/. This report is, however, “Work in Progress”, and the contents are likely to change until all work is completed at the end of the term.
Personal Email
Click here to send me email:
mailto://Rajini.Rajendran@drexel.edu
Personal Project Work Log
Week 1
- Sept 24, 2003 – Project Meeting at Math Forum Offices
- First formal meeting – met others on project
- Group Formation for collaboration was briefly discussed
- Compiled a list of commercial software that can be used for collaboration
Week 2
- Oct 1, 2003 – Meeting at Prof. Stahl’s Office
- Discussions on setting up listserv, discussion threads etc.
- Looked up and collected information on Problem-based learning and Math Collaboration
Week 3
- Oct 7, 2003 – One-on-one meeting, Prof. Stahl’s Office
- Scope of individual work was discussed
- Oct 10, 2003 – Project Meeting at Math Forum Offices
- Work completed so far was discussed (Distribution lists, Participant page, poster, individual contributions)
- Started work on web pages to document my work
- Began preliminary work on conceptual design
- Posted web pages on iisweb
Week 4
- Oct 17, 2003 – Project Meeting at Math Forum Offices
- Report on poster session
- Discussion on Square and Not so Square Numbers - a problem for “Math in Context” at Sharswood School
- Looking into list of open source projects for group collaboration
Week 5
- Oct 24, 2003 – Project Meeting at Math Forum Offices
- Report on visit to Sharswood School
- Presentation on Conceptual Design
Week 6
- Oct 28, 2003 – Mid-term review with Prof. Stahl
- Work with Kevin to come up with conceptual design, final report
- Oct 29, 2003 - Project Meeting at Collaboratory
- Discussion on starting collaboration on Math Forum
- Problems to extend learning activity on Square numbers at Sharswood School
Week 7
- Nov 5, 2003 - Project Meeting at Math Forum Offices
- Watched video clip of students working collaboratively on problem presented by Steve
- Discussions on labeling and analyzing the video clips
- Some discussion around the fact that two aspects that were used a lot - thinking aloud and watching each other's reactions/expressions - will be missing in an online environment
Week 8
- Nov 12, 2003 - Meeting with Prof. Stahl and Kevin to discuss conceptual design
- Group size to try out - 4
- Groups will be formed based on users answering questionnaire (age, city/country, time usually logged on etc.)
- Problem posed will consist of several parts to be answered sequentially. Answer to part 1 must be submitted before going on to Part 2 and so on.
- Users will be able to vote on answer being submitted. A pre-defined percentage of members of the group must agree to the answer submitted for the answer to be accepted.
- Nov 19, 2003 - Project meeting at Math Forum
- Discussions on work to be done next term
- DVD with session at Sharswood School will be created and distributed for analysis
Week 9
Week 10
- Dec 3, 2003 - Project meeting at Math Forum
- Presentation of Initial Prototype
- Changes that may be necessary to the prototype were discussed
- Working on Final Research Paper
Week 11
Gerry's notes
- post summaries & links for commercial & open source software
- matrix of specs vs apps with narrative summary of issues
- conceptual design/mock-up
- cognitive walkthrough with Math Forum people
- final report due Dec 12
- schedule project meeting Dec 2 after 1 or 12/3 before noon
![[Home]](/gifs/MFlisting.gif)