Authoring Maths questions

New author Bob Mathews has been experimenting with different ways to create Maths questions. He is using MathType to create some very sophisticated notation, but the problem is how to present this in quizzes.

Bob explains

I had to save the equation as a GIF, upload the GIF, then drag it over to the quiz. What seemed to work best (I’m using MathType) was 32pt text and 300ppi, with smooth edges and the default white background. Naturally it’s notreally going to be 300ppi in the quiz, but when Flash scales it down it looks much better than the default 72 or 96ppi. Here’s one with those parameters:

Authoring Maths questions

Bob has not created a whole quiz yet (I hope he will!) but if you are a member of the Sandpit authoring group, you can see his initial questions here and here.

Disclosure: Bob works for Design Science, the company behind MathType. I am perfectly happy to give them a little free promotion because he has clearly demonstrated that it’s a very useful tool for the serious Maths author. They offer a 30 day free trial, which I will certainly be taking advantage of.

This entry was posted in Authoring, Maths, Yacapaca and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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