[WWdevel] Problems that automatically assist

[Jason H. <how...@po...>]

Hello,

Hi -- My name is jason howald.  I'm a math faculty member at SUNY  
Potsdam.  I sent a similar message to Mike Gage, and he recommended  
the development list.

I've enjoyed Webwork very much, but I have often wished that it gave  
students some useful advice appropriate to the problems.  I also wish  
that it would solve the problems *itself* -- I'm too lazy to type the  
answer as a function of the problem parameters.

I'm interested in enhancements of Webwork which allow for the  
creation of "automatically assistive" problems, capable of generating  
their own solutions, explaining those solutions to students, and of  
course checking student submissions for correctness.  I'm focusing on  
differentiation, since that's a nice simple case.  I'm writing to  
show off a tool, and start a conversation about whether the kind of  
functionality I'm interested in can be incorporated into Webwork.

This is a screengrab of a JavaScript implementation that I put  
together, to help you see what I'm talking about.  (The site is live  
but has some odd interfacing and general problems with IE.)