MathML in e-Learning with Amaya

MathML Conference 2002 — Chicago — 28-30 June 2002

Introduction

MathML, the Web, and e-Learning

• The use of the Web for e-learning is now commonplace
• MathML is an essential component for teaching on the Web
• Web tools implementing MathML are needed
• While required, browsers are not enough

Some requirements

The student's viewpoint

• Students create their own documents, not only teachers
• Documents contain text, graphics, and mathematics
• Authoring and posting documents should be easy and consistent
• Cooperative features for discussion between teachers and students

Amaya

Amaya is a complete Web authoring tool for the most popular platforms:

• Seamless integration of browsing and editing
• Direct access (read/write) to the Web - HTTP 1.1
• Direct manipulation interface
• Many customization features - profiles, language
• Full support of hypertext links - XLink
• Styling with CSS
• Several XML document formats...

Document formats

Amaya supports several formats

• Various XML languages for documents
• XHTML family, MathML 2.0, SVG 1.0 (under development)
• Compound documents based on namespaces: $L">\prod _{k=1}^{\infty }{e}^{\raisebox{1ex}{$S_k{z}^k$}\!\left/ \!\raisebox{-1ex}{$k$}\right.}$
• Editing the whole document seamlessly

MathML in Amaya

• Presentation markup
• Structure editing through a formatted representation - natural input
• Low level elements are inferred
• Structure entered on the keyboard or with a palette
• Components are generated automatically
• Structure and source code are displayed in synchronized views
• Source code can be edited too
• Equations can be edited within documents or separately
• All generic operations are shared with other languages:

  CSS style, search/replace, undo/redo, etc.

• MathML expressions are well-formed and valid

Recent developments

• Many minor problems fixed
• All elements, attributes and entities are available
• User interface improvements:
  • Entering symbols and invisible characters
  • Cursor movement and size, etc.
• Compound documents (XHTML+MathML+SVG)
• Large documents
• Improved display with OpenGL (anti-aliasing, kerning)
• Full support of Unicode...
• Cooperative work facilities...

Unicode

Amaya fully supports Unicode

• Multilingual documents - example
• Wide range of mathematical symbols
• Stix fonts enable
  • more symbols
  • better stretchable characters:

    $F\left(y\right)=\frac{1}{2n}{\int }_{-\infty }^{\sqrt{y}}\left(\sum _{k=1}^n{\sin }^2{x}_k\left(t\right)\right)f\left(t\right)dt$

Cooperative work

Sharing documents

• Same tool for browsing and editing
• One-click publication (HTTP Put)
• Access control: WebDAV
• Shared annotations...

Annotations

Annotea is based on RDF and XPointer

• Any Web resource can be annotated

  - no change to the annotated resource

• Annotations can be linked to any part of a Web page
• Annotations may contain any XML language, including MathML
• Annotations can be shared on the Web
• Annotations may support threads of discussion

Conclusion

Future developments include

• Customizable symbol palettes
• Customizable construct palette(s)

Most features presented here are available in other tools

• Open standards provide interoperability

More information : http://www.w3.org/Amaya/

Thank you!