Quick Check and Quiz Functions

As I continue to explore the online text offered by Atomic Dog publishing, I have found two useful tools that I will describe in this post. 

The first tool is called Quick Check.  The main idea behind this tool is to encourage students to read through each chapter.  For example, one of the first topics in most statistics text books is the idea of visually displaying information.  This textbook provides this lesson very early on in the text.  My experience has taught me that the UG students I work with tend to pay little attention to this concept at the beginning of the course.  I believe Quick Check would be useful as I can add ungraded assessments at the end of each page.  I believe adding an ungraded assessment after each section will accomplish a minimum of two things.  First, students who glossed over the reading will be encouraged to go back an reread the information.  Second, I can pull the results of the Quick Check responses and identify difficult concepts so I may address them in future classes.

The second tool provided in the text is the Quiz function.  The fact there is quiz functionality should not be too surprising.  However, the instructor has the ability to edit the quiz or add new questions as he or she sees fit.  This is especially important in a field like statistics as we tend to use different terms to describe the same concept.  For example, the terms outcome variable, dependent variable, and response variable all mean the same thing.  If I use one of these terms in class, I can make sure the same term is used in the quizzes.  Very cool.  This will enable me to use a preexisting tool without having to change my vocabulary or style of teaching.  See ya.

'Learn More' Function

One of the first criteria I employ for selecting a text book is price.  Our current department 'common' text goes for $130 which I think is outrageous.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am reviewing Introductory Statistics: Concepts, Models, & Applications.  The electronic version of this text sells for $58.50.  As a bonus, you can add the paper text to the electronic version and receive both for $67.75.  Personally, I feel like this is a pretty good deal. 

Of course, the textbook needs to be effective as well.  With this in mind, I have been testing the functionality of the electronic text in order to identify advantages of electronic over paper.  The AtomicDog Publishing company appears to provide standardized tools for each of their textbooks.  One such tool is the 'Learn More' function.  This function enables the instructor to add references to additional content within the text.  For example, I commonly use YouTube videos in class in order to engage students in meaningful discussion.  The electronic text enables me to add a note to particular sections of the text asking students to do additional work beyond the text.  For practice, I embedded a note directing students to a specific URL and asked them to view the video so we can discuss in class.  The student will then go to the end of the text and notice a '+' sign indicating to them the professor has added content.  The students then click on the link the instructor created (and named) and the instructions and URL pop up.  I am not sure if you will be able to see this, but I am pasting the URL to the note a student will see:

http://www.atomicdog.com/MyBackpack/ContentDisplay3-0/main.asp?book=ds-5-2-10035&Session=091A90E3-2AC6-4E5B-987F-FD39FBE826BC

Of course, the link name is given a title so they do not see the address as you do.  I must say I really like this tool and can see using it in both my UG and Grad courses.  See ya!