How to build a certain kind of blog
November 12, 2014 6:23 PM   Subscribe

I want to create a blog for my students to explore math content.

I want to populate it with activities for learning math topics, mostly things I've created with Geogebra (which uses javascript).

Ideally, this would be an environment where students would be prompted to answer a question (use of text-box input) and receive text feedback, then given a graph/picture to manipulate (created by me, in Geogebra). I could also ask multiple choice questions and give feedback. Also, I could somehow "randomize" the question being asked/graph displayed.

Can I build this kind of thing for free? Where do I go to start putting this thing together?

Difficulty Level: I know math, but very little programming. I'm not afraid to learn the programming required, provided it's not light years away from my Q-Basic understanding of coding.

How would you build this? Have you done this before? Where would you send an eager would be math blogger?
posted by klausman to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
If free is the controlling factor why not just Wordpress.com?

You might look at Dan Meyer's past links and comments about different solutions. It's possible he's addressed blogging for this purpose.
posted by phearlez at 6:47 PM on November 12, 2014


Response by poster: Free is not the primary controlling factor (though it is significant). I could make my students pay for a learning management system (MyMathLab, WileyPlus), but I want something where I control the content. In particular, I want to create things for my students using things like Geogebra. From what I've read, Wordpress doesn't allow Javascript content, so Geogebra is out, and that's a deal breaker. I know that people have used Webwork2 to do what I'm thinking of, but it has been discontinued. I'd like something more current and supported.

I love Dan Meyer's blog, but I didn't think to check it out for advice re: math blogs. Good suggestion.
posted by klausman at 7:07 PM on November 12, 2014


You can integrate the MAA's WebWork with Geogebra. It's a steeper learning curve than a blog, but there are lots of folks out there writing WebWork problems.
posted by yarntheory at 7:51 PM on November 12, 2014


I'm not sure that this will be much help, but back in the 1960s-70s the TUTOR programming language on the PLATO system at UIUC would do almost all of this (except for the Javascript part, which hadn't been invented yet).

TUTOR and PLATO went on to inspire an awful lot of other languages and languages - I offer it as a possible starting point for a search.
posted by doctor tough love at 7:53 PM on November 12, 2014


Tools for building a Wordpress LMS might be helpful here.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:26 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm not sure this is a blog exactly? It seems more like an LMS or online quiz, not sure if that helps you in your research. There are also online course building tools out there if you want to search for that as well.
posted by polexa at 2:59 AM on November 13, 2014


Wordpress certainly does allow javascript, though you need to modify it a little, because allowing unsanitized javascript in posts is an obvious security problem. You might want to use a plugin to simplify this.

Looking at the Geogebra website, I see that they even include embed codes specifically for Wordpress (using iframes) for existing materials.

I'm sure there would be a way to randomize problems using an existing plugin, although I haven't explored that. And there are WP developers that you can contract over on projects.metafilter.com
posted by adamrice at 7:52 AM on November 13, 2014


I am one of those Wordpress developers/administrators, and Wordpress doing things For Your Own Good, a la removing javascript, etc, is certainly one of the most frustrating things there is to deal with. In my experience coding to it and in running We Love DC (where I most often ran up against the issue of an author wanting to put something into a post that WP would then screw up) you end up with this happening in two places:

One, the graphical editor. Flip over to the raw HTML, paste your stuff in, flip back to graphical... and it's hosed up in some way. There were situations we discovered where the most practical thing was just to write your containing post, flip to HTML, paste in your funky stuff and press save.

Two, the various sanitization modules in WP. As adamrice says, there's plugins to cope with this. If you trust yourself not to throw in bad stuff and are the only person posting there then you can go with some of the simpler plugins that will let you just whitelist certain types of thing carte blanche and get on with your day. A more sophisticated approach would require you to have custom post types so you're a little more constrained for your own safety.

This plugin approach is where you're going to potentially have to find a place to run a self-hosted solution rather than Wordpress.com since you can't just use any plugin from anywhere - they're more limited. On the other hand, they build in support for things like LaTeX. That link came from my googling "math bloggers using wordpress.com" which is probably a good way to find other good resources like this - you are not the first to deal with this.

Which is also probably going to help you with using Geogebra stuff - if they're offering embed code you are FAR from the first person to wrestle with this kind of thing.

To take a bit of a left turn, you might also consider whether you could just accomplish what you want with Github Pages and doing your blogging with Jekyl then posting to Github. So long as you don't mind the repository - the raw data before it's generated into the site - being public you can do it completely free and with a very highly available publishing destination.
posted by phearlez at 10:01 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


« Older Help me pick a cool new mailbox!   |   How to Aldi Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.