En estas conferencias (ECEL) se dan a conocer todo tipo de trabajos y proyectos relacionados con el estudio, investigación y aplicación de cualquier área del e-Learning. En particular, en esta edición se presentaron más de 200 artículos procedentes de 33 países diferentes.
]]>En estas conferencias (ECEL) se dan a conocer todo tipo de trabajos y proyectos relacionados con el estudio, investigación y aplicación de cualquier área del e-Learning. En particular, en esta edición se presentaron más de 200 artículos procedentes de 33 países diferentes.
Entre ellos se ecuentra el proyecto sobre el desarrollo y aplicación del Verbalizador de Fórmulas, cuyo principal objetivo consiste en facilitar el aprendizaje y la tutoría online de los primeros cursos (de matemáticas), a través de la verbalización de fórmulas matemáticas. A pesar de que la nomenclatura y formulación matemática son básicas para disponer de una base sólida en cualquier área científico-técnica, la mayoría de ellas son olvidadas e incluso desconocidas para la mayoría de los alumnos de los primeros cursos.
El Verbalizador de Fórmulas está desarrollado por Maths for More, y actualmente está integrado, junto con una aplicación del Editor de Fórmulas WIRIS, en el contenido online del Curso de Iniciación a las Matemáticas para Ingeniería que ofrece la UOC y que este año cursan, aproximadamente, un millar de estudiantes.
Adjunta está la presentación en el ECEL08 del Verbalizador de Fórmulas.
]]>You can now use the breadcrumbs to navigate directly back to the pages where the dissemination items etc are listed instead of having to go through the menu, for example:
You can now use the breadcrumbs to navigate directly back to the pages where the dissemination items etc are listed instead of having to go through the menu, for example:
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I post here a photograph of a page from the NAG documentation in which one can see MathML being rendered natively by Safari using css on a iphone. Because it is MathML, the fonts scale well and zooming makes the formula very readable. The MathML profile for CSS is doing the trick, with the stylesheet by David using the css by George for Opera. What makes this interesting is the fact that we were not sure if the version of Safari running on the iphone has a xslt processor able to handle the stylesheet. Some recent experiments on IE8 of the same trick seem not to work as well.
If you want to test your iphone on some rendering, go to the NAG library documentation, in the pic for instance is http://www.nag.com/numeric/FL/manual/xhtml/A02/a02aaf.xml, and post your picture to show off your mathml.
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To get a true picture of the performance differences, I took snapshots of CPU and memory usage of Mac Pro and of MacBook Air while the computers where producing the movie discussed in my previous blog entry.
The picture above shows the CPU usage of my Mac Pro, and the picture below that of my MacBook Air.
To get a true picture of the performance differences, I took snapshots of CPU and memory usage of Mac Pro and of MacBook Air while the computers where producing the movie discussed in my previous blog entry.
The picture above shows the CPU usage of my Mac Pro, and the picture below that of my MacBook Air.
During the production of the movie, MacBook Air was typically using about 90% of its processor's capability while Mac Pro was using only about 25%.
Memory usage is also interesting.
The picture above shows the memory usage of Mac Pro during the movie production and the picture below that of my MacBook Air.
While the performance difference in this particular task, movie production with iMovie, was significant, the real difference lies in the fact that Mac Pro can perform several heavy tasks like that at the same time while MacBook Air must put all its resources into this one task only in order to perform it in a satisfactory fashion.
]]>For your comfort, we have added a listing of each partners dissemination items, case studies and software to the pages at About JEM -> The JEM Network -> <Partner Name>.
Any suggestions for improving the partner pages further are welcomed :)
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I am spending a lot of time with podcast production. During the process of learning this trade I have gone through lots of hardware and software. From Windows to Mac, from USB microphones to condenser microphones etc.
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I am spending a lot of time with podcast production. During the process of learning this trade I have gone through lots of hardware and software. From Windows to Mac, from USB microphones to condenser microphones etc.
Today I got my new Mac Pro set up and files transferred. The new computer is Mac Pro 8-core (2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM). I tested this against my MacBook Air (1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM).
In the test I first imported five Quick time movies to iMovie in both systems. These Quicktime movies where produced previously as exports of Keynote presentations with audio. Within iMovie I then combined these movies to a single 8:35 long medium size movie (640x480).
When creating podcasts for my students I typically produce movies in three different sizes (mobile, medium and large). The production, that is the creation of the final product from within iMovie when the movie already has been composed, of these three different sizes of podcasts takes typically more than 90 minutes for a 10 minute podcast. This is a slow process to which I wanted to get an improvement by upgrading hardware.
Here are the "not scientifically" produced numbers (I was simply taking time with a stop watch):
1. Importing video clips to iMovie: 2:56/1:25 (MacBook Air times given first), q = 2.07.
2. Within iMovie, exporting a 8:35 minutes long movie in medium format (640x480): 25:40/4:37, q = 5.62.
This is a dramatic improvement. Exporting movies with Mac Pro takes less than a fifth of the time compared to MacBook Air.
I have ordered 16 GB memory upgrade for the Mac Pro from Other World Computing. I should receive that tomorrow. I will then retake this speed test and report back to this blog of the results. Anyway, it seems clear that getting a more serious computer for podcast production was the right thing to do.
]]>Tim Berners Lee is arguing we need to clean up the web from the mess, meaning the legacy markup which is out there and is nevertheless displayed by browsers without any error message being displayed. If the amount of non-valid content grows, it makes it hard to build on top of the current layer. What we learned is that each layer needs to build on top, as extension, of lower layers. Making sure that the new content that is produced is "clean" ensures better extensibility, in 15 years (they go real fast). The current browsers implement a step function which either does not display anything or displays the document, despite the errors. This behavior does not reward users for the extra work needed to make the source validate.
]]>Not the most sophisticated tool ever, agreed, but a very nice and useful addition to the flash drive in your pocket, and a nice suggestion for students.
]]>The conclusion of the minister is that we must improve mathematics and science education at high schools. How to do this is the problem. Inquiry Based Study, IBS for short, seems to be the new buzz word. IBS is another name for the method that Juha Oikkonen has initiated in Finland several years ago under the name “paja.” This translates to English as laboratory. The point is to encourage students’ individual activity. This is what the LUMA center at the University of Helsinki is also doing under the direction of Maija Aksela.
Minister Xavier Darcos talked about the challenges we are facing. Perhaps the most important challenge is to create a European framework to improve scientific education and to get more people into these studies.
Teaching science today: a new kind of pedagogy is needed. More sharing of knowledge is needed.
1. Sciences must be introduced at schools earlier than what is being done today.
2. Teacher training must improve. Promote greater mobility of teachers.
School for the 21st century program will be proposed to the European Parliament.
The above was the message of minister Xavier Darcos.
Nobody has suggested that we might want to import good students from Asia and elsewhere. This is what the US has been doing for a long time.
]]>Security announcement on the issue is available at http://drupal.org/node/318706, please report any possible problems with the website.
]]>Security announcement on the issue is available at http://drupal.org/node/318706, please report any possible problems with the website.
]]>odt2tbook plugin for OpenOffice.org has won an award. He does not mention he has been interviewed in a podcast about the OpenOffice.org community. Congratulations are in order!
]]>odt2tbook plugin for OpenOffice.org has won an award. He does not mention he has been interviewed in a podcast about the OpenOffice.org community. Congratulations are in order!
