Intelligent Tutoring and Automated Assessment System (ITnAAS) An Innovation in On-line Teaching and Learning

UiTM, Shah Alam, 1 July 2008, Prof Madya Dr Ismail Abdullah from the Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Bandar Baru Nilai presented a paper entitled, “Intelligent Tutoring and Automated Assessment System (ITnAAS) An Innovation in On-line Teaching and Learning“, he mentioned that this project is the enlargement of the previous project which he started in the Institut Matematik Kejuruteraan (IMK), Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP). The previous project which was called, “Mathematics Intelligent Tutoring and Automated Assessment System (MITnAAS)”, was agreed in a meeting on 25th. June 2008 to be stationed at IMK, UniMAP, while the new project ITnAAS which will embraced all other subjects will be centralized in USIM, Bandar Baru Nilai.

He mentioned that, “due to its huge usage of computer memory and storage, probably we will have to use Grid Computing Technology to ease internet traffic congestion”. It is hope that all other institutions of higher learning will participate in making this project a reality. This Web-Based Learning System will be created using Java platform and will be producing a lot of MathLets as proposed by Prof Madya Dr Arsmah Ibrahim in her paper.

The Use of Maple Software in Teaching and Learning Integration – What are the students perception

UiTM, Shah Alam, 1 July 2008, Pn Asiahwati presented a paper with the above title where she uses Maple’s integration engine to study students acceptance in using Maple. She prepared four lesson plans for her research. There are 25 students in the sample with 25 questions posed to students. Each student was given lesson plan which started from lesson plan 1 until lesson plan 4 to do integration, they use exploratory method to learn about integration in Maple environment. After each lesson plan, students are asked to answer some questions to evaluate their understanding in integration topic. In each lesson plan, learning objectives were set and activities the students should do. The students can use the integration engine in Maple to learn step by step in doing integration. In the lesson plan 3, she uses volume as her topic and asked her students to do integration.

Her research produced the following results, that Maple help students understanding in integration, Maple is suitable in learning mathematics, Maple is an alternative tools for learning mathematics.

Embedding Mathlets In Mathematics Courses Using Maple

UiTM, Shah Alam, 1 July 2008, Prof Madya Dr Arsmah Ibrahim presented a paper entitled, “Embedding Mathlets In Mathematics Courses Using Maple“, she mentioned that mathematics emphasizes the acquisition of problem solving skills in doing mathematics assignments and exercises. She further elaborated that, we are trying to use Mathlets which are developed using Java to help students understand mathematics. This little mathlets can be integrated into our lecture using Maple. Besides developing ourselves we can also download or reference to certain websites for mathlets and thus make our teaching better and help our students understanding.

Prof Madya Dr Arsmah Ibrahim started using Maple9 and since the keep on using it to help her teaching in Differential Equation subject. She prepares lecture materials using Maple and produce mathlets embedded in the lecture material to make sudents understand better the materials being lectured. Maple engine is actually working behind her lecture materials. She uses clickable buttons in her lecture materials to activate certain animations and examples in her lecture. She encourages audience to use Mathlets in teaching. Her students responses were very good and they could visualise the ideas behind her lectures.

Solution for Academic Instruction

UiTM, Shah Alam, 1 July 2008, Maple started as a research project at the University of Waterloo, Canada. It later developed into a commercial product in mathematics. Through consistent research and development Maple has grown as what it is now. Maple Users Conference was told by Eugene Ng, i-Math Sdn Bhd

Maple assists students in learning especially in mathematics. Visualization played a very important role in learning mathematics, with its graphic capability students can visualize graphs of functions they are studying.

There are also connectivity to other software such as MatLab, Mathematica and the rest. The basic programming of Maple software is C and Java.

The problem of using software such as Maple to do mathematics is that students do not really understand the basic concepts of mathematics.

Maple 12 is the latest version of Maple and its capability is very much enhanced by many user friendly utilities. New feature for Maple 12 is Interactive Exploration. This feature is very useful when we want to explore complicated equations and observing its behaviour. The other features remain the same. Now it is called “clickable Maple” because by using right click of our mouse we can get a list of commands to the right to choose.

Maple Users Conference 2008 at UiTM, Shah Alam

Shah Alam, UiTM, 1 July 2008, Maple Users Conference 2008 was conducted in UiTM, Shah Alam for sharing experience among Maple users in Malaysia. UiTM being the biggest group of users of Maple usually host the event.

The opening ceremony was officiated by Prof Dr Zainab Abu Bakar, the Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology and Qualitative Sciences (FITQS). She welcomed all participants to make full use of the conference to exchange ideas and experience in using Maple. UiTM already a harden user of Maple use MapleNet and MapleTA in delivering of Automated Assessment System among students and use MapleNet for learning process.