[ale] [OT] Software and file formats for on-line/correspondence chemical education

[Charles Shapiro]

Hmm.  The trouble with OO Draw et cetera is that they don't really
allow for version control, which I think is ultimately where you're
going.

I'd recommend the GIMP ( http://www.gimp.org/ )  if it's really
important to keep everyting in one file. GIMP implements "layers", so
that you could have the drawing and then successive edits on top of
it, each encapsulated in a way that you could roll back or forward as
a unit.  The GIMP won't allow you to organize your edits
chronologically though.  That means you'll have to wrangle that part
of your requirements separately, by establishing a naming convention
or something.  Plus,  your students are going to have to learn a
(probably alien) software package.  The GIMP is available for all of
the major OSs, however, as is Open Office.

Have you considered using an RCS for this?  Seems like it you had a
Subversion ( http://subversion.tigris.org/ ) repository set up
somewhere that your students could get to, they could just check their
assignments in, then you could edit them as you wish and check your
edits in on top of their original work.  That'd provide a really clear
trail of who did what when, and you could still be pretty agnostic
about what kinds of files you were handling.  There're even some
places on the web that'll manage the SVN repository for you I believe.
 The subset of subversion commands you really need to know to talk to
a repository is pretty small, and setting it up on winders is
relatively trivial.  Might be worth a look.

-- CHS


On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Wolf Halton <wolf.halton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Tom Freeman <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> I have accepted the job of teaching an on-line chemistry course for majors
>> next fall, with the requirement that the course be written this spring.
>> I for see an issue which I could use a whole heaping bunch of help with,
>> specifically ensuring that the students engage in using/generating the
>> visual aspects of chemical "language" and formally engage in showing
>> (documenting and defending) numeric problem solving. I am not being paid
>> enough to accept just showing a picture to the student, and accepting a
>> multiple guess regurgitation. I expect details given without hints from
>> me.
>>
>> The education technology types at the school have ideas which partially
>> get the problem solved, if we only accept Windows on all sides. Since I
>> use Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora mostly), with a little Mac work to help my
>> own children, setting a requirement to use Microsoft products only
>> _really_ has my back up, and heels dug in. Plus, I need to avoid more cost
>> to the student, as it looks like budgeting for this course is potentially
>> headed north of $600. Achieving sufficient interactivity to accommodate
>> online office hours in Moodle using Eluminate is a real positive here.
>>
>> What then am I looking for? Software which reads/writes a useful,
>> well defined file format which will support a work flow pattern which I
>> will attempt to describe below. Obviously cross platform availability; at
>> least including Linux/Unix, Mac, and Windows having software available,
>> with IOS and Android availability a plus. I'm open to commercial software,
>> but in the interest of holding costs down and personal values, I really
>> want open-source, with zero-cost ("free beer?") running a close second.
>> Plus I want it robust as a get out, since the students I've had so far in
>> class can break just about anything just by walking past it.
>>
>> With respect to the work flow, the current idea is that the student will
>> perform some task any way that they can. Unless it is already in an
>> appropriate form, the student will then scan their work, and upload the
>> resulting file to me. Using a tablet & stylus, I then annotate the
>> student's work with circles, arrows, and indications of doom and dispare,
>> followed by returning the file to the student. At which time the cycle
>> will repeat until exhaustion or learning occurs, or a grade is assigned.
>> If possible, and it may not be, within the file being transferred, I would
>> like to keep the individual entries separate, such that the teacher's
>> notes can be easily obscured in order to view just the student's work. (In
>> my seated classes, any work performed in red gets a zero, since _all_ my
>> comments/notes/grading gets done in red. As a result, both the student and
>> myself have a chance of determining got what right/wrong and where. I want
>> to retain this ability.)
>>
>> So far, I _think_ the Adobe pdf format has the capability to handle my
>> needs, but I haven't proven it by discovering which software used how will
>> cause this to happen, especially happen reliably.
>>
>> If anybody on this list can make sense of the above word salad and suggest
>> a possible solution approach, I'd love to hear it.
>>
>> I thank everybody here for the use of their bandwidth and their patience
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>
>
>
> What kind of thing are they doing?
> OpenOfficeDraw can let them make sketches
> Dia can let them make more organized diagrams (replaces visio)
> What MafiaSoft product are you attempting to substitute?
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