Isabelle/PIDE as Platform for Educational Tools

The Isabelle/PIDE platform addresses the question whether proof assistants of the LCF family are suitable as technological basis for educational tools. The traditionally strong logical foundations of systems like HOL, Coq, or Isabelle have so far been counter-balanced by somewhat inaccessible interaction via the TTY (or minor variations like the well-known Proof General / Emacs interface). Thus the fundamental question of math education tools with fully-formal background theories has often been answered negatively due to accidental weaknesses of existing proof engines. The idea of "PIDE" (which means "Prover IDE") is to integrate existing provers like Isabelle into a larger environment, that facilitates access by end-users and other tools. We use Scala to expose the proof engine in ML to the JVM world, where many user-interfaces, editor frameworks, and educational tools already exist. This shall ultimately lead to combined mathematical assistants, where the logical engine is in the background, without obstructing the view on applications of formal methods, formalized mathematics, and math education in particular.Comment: In Proceedings THedu'11, arXiv:1202.453

Educational tools for infrastructural development

Educational tools for infrastructural developmen

Two computer-based learning environments for reading and writing narratives

In this brief paper, two computer-based educational tools are described. They are designed to support children learning the literacy skills of narrative comprehension and creation. We give an overview of these tools, and then discuss the educational hypotheses that we are planning to use them to test

MULTIMEDIA BASED EDUCATION TOOLS FOR STUDYING HIRAGANA AND KATAKANA LETTERS FOR BEGINERS USING MACROMEDIA FLASH

The advancement of technology in education today indicate that the use of foreign language is inevitable in the globalisation era. One of the example is the use of Japanese language in the international education and trading. Thus, the demand to study Japanese letter is increasing. Nevertheless the education tools to study it is somehow still conventional ones, such as papers, cards, and books which are less interesting, and people usually get bored and get some difficulties.This study aims to develop multimedia based education tools which could be used to complement the education process for Hiragana and Katakana letters, and to find out the relevancy of this education tools. This study uses Researh and Development approach. It is conducted on May 2011 at Focus Group Discussion (FGD) in “Pusat Budaya Jepang” learning institution. The subject being studied are 15 students, and the object are multimedia based education tools for studying Hiragana and Katakana letters. Research is performed in several steps : competency standard, problem and potential solution, analisis of needs, designs and implementations, products, expert validation, product revisions, trial usage, product revision and mass production. Data collection method being used are observation and unstructured interview. Analyzing technique being used is descriptive qualitatif analysis. Result of validation conducted by educational material expert stated that this educational tools are accordance with the cmpetency standard and are fit for educational purpose. So as media experts state that this educational tools are good example and are fit for educational purpose. Based trial usage to the students this tools fit for the purpose and make the educational process easier. Keyword : educational tools, multimedia, Hiaragana and Katakana letters, Macromedia Flash

Electronic books: Are they effective educational tools for students who are deaf or hard of hearing?

This literature review will examine the effectiveness of electronic book features on students’ reading development in the general education population and investigate whether or not these digital tools could be a useful tool and/or supplement in literacy for students who are deaf and hard of hearing

The Learning of Ancient Languages as\ud (super)Human Effort

Problems around teaching ancient languages are discussed. It is suggested to assume that\ud learning and teaching of languages require some superhuman effort. Author’s experience of\ud teaching ancient languages and producing electronic educational tools both for text version\ud and for Internet in Faculty of Theology in University of Latvia is described. Problems around\ud cognitive models of reasoning and place of languages there are discussed

A feasibility study of educational tools for osteomalacia

Many people in the UK, particularly people of South Asian origin, are advised to supplement their vitamin D intake, yet most do not. This suggests an unmet educational need. The osteomalacia mind map was developed to meet this need. The mind map contains culturally sensitive images, translated into Urdu and made interactive on a DVD. This study explores the feasibility of a randomised controlled study to measure the effect of education on improving vitamin D knowledge and adherence. This was a pilot and feasibility study. Cluster randomisation was used to avoid inter person contamination. Two South Asian women’s groups were recruited to receive information about osteomalacia either by interactive DVD or an Arthritis Research UK leaflet. Knowledge and compliance were tested before and after the educational interventions via a knowledge questionnaire and the measurement of vitamin D and parathormone levels. The groups were found to be mismatched for knowledge, educational attainment and language at baseline. There were also organisational difficulties and possible confounding due to different tutors and translators. The DVD group had high knowledge at baseline which did not improve. The leaflet group had low knowledge at baseline that did improve. The DVD group had lower parathormone which did not change. The leaflet group had an increase in vitamin D but parathormone remained high. Performing a randomised study with this population utilising an educational intervention was difficult to execute. If cluster randomisation is used, extreme care must be taken to match the groups at baseline

A feasibility study of educational tools for osteomalacia

Many people in the UK, particularly people of South Asian origin, are advised to supplement their vitamin D intake, yet most do not. This suggests an unmet educational need. The osteomalacia mind map was developed to meet this need. The mind map contains culturally sensitive images, translated into Urdu and made interactive on a DVD. This study explores the feasibility of a randomised controlled study to measure the effect of education on improving vitamin D knowledge and adherence. This was a pilot and feasibility study. Cluster randomisation was used to avoid inter person contamination. Two South Asian women’s groups were recruited to receive information about osteomalacia either by interactive DVD or an Arthritis Research UK leaflet. Knowledge and compliance were tested before and after the educational interventions via a knowledge questionnaire and the measurement of vitamin D and parathormone levels. The groups were found to be mismatched for knowledge, educational attainment and language at baseline. There were also organisational difficulties and possible confounding due to different tutors and translators. The DVD group had high knowledge at baseline which did not improve. The leaflet group had low knowledge at baseline that did improve. The DVD group had lower parathormone which did not change. The leaflet group had an increase in vitamin D but parathormone remained high. Performing a randomised study with this population utilising an educational intervention was difficult to execute. If cluster randomisation is used, extreme care must be taken to match the groups at baseline