This semester I have been using the Interwrite Personal Response System (see http://www.interwritelearning.com/products/prs/radio/detail.html) in the classroom. Instructor using this system prepares questions that will be shown to the students on a video projector screen in the classroom. The questions are multiple choice, and students answer by clickers.

The basic calculus course at the University of Helsinki has been offered online for many years. The course was completely revised this time. We are trying to activate students by asking them to contribute to weekly forum discussions, and by giving generous extra credit for that. Next time I may make that a compulsory part of the course.

I have earlier reported in this blog about using GrageBand, a component of Apple’s iLife 08, to produce Calculus Podcasts. While GarageBand allows the convenient editing of the soundtrack, the quality of graphics that GarageBand supports, is not good enough for Calculus Podcasts.

New ideas come from the kids. Some time ago I promised to my daughter to get her a microphone if she improves her grades a lot. Now she got her report, and I had to take her to a professional music store to buy the microphone. She got an AUDIX OM 2 microphone. We also got an USB Audio Capture device (EDIROL, UA-25, USB powered).

As a result of my daughter insisting on getting an iPod, I also got one for myself. The 80 GB video iPod is an incredible device(http://www.apple.com/ipodclassic/). So far I have used it to follow great podcasts like the one by David Pogue (http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/) or the News from Lake Wobegon (http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/) both of which are conveniently available through iTunes.

Recordings of lectures are perhaps the strongest point in elearning. It is possible to record the lectures and exercise sessions. We use iVocalize in the calculus course offered virtually at the University of Helsinki. The system allows all the participants to record all events in the class.

I am in charge of a virtual calculus course that started earlier this week. The course is offered at the University of Helsinki. The course is intended for non math majors, but math majors may also include the course in their studies. This is already the fifth time the course is offered online. The technology used in the course is improving, and hence, in a way, this is a new release of the course. Hence the experiences that we will have may be of some interest.

The JEM network collects together leading European universities and companies which have high-quality special knowledge and experience in digital content in mathematics. A quick inventory of the digital content within the network shows that all partners qualify as stakeholders for eContent in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical physics. The following list illustrates the quality and volume of the content owned by some of the partners of this proposal: