Structured editing of handwritten mathematics

Teaching effectively requires a clear presentation of the material being taught and interaction with the students. Studies have shown that Tablet PCs provide a good technological support for teaching. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to design a structure editor of handwritten mathema...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41239/
_version_ 1848796228833247232
author Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira
author_facet Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira
author_sort Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Teaching effectively requires a clear presentation of the material being taught and interaction with the students. Studies have shown that Tablet PCs provide a good technological support for teaching. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to design a structure editor of handwritten mathematics that explores the facilities provided by Tablet PCs. The editor is made available in the form of a class library that can be used to extend existing tools. The central feature of the library is the definition of structure for handwritten mathematical expressions which allows syntactic manipulation of expressions. This makes it possible to accurately select, copy and apply algebraic rules, while avoiding the introduction of errors. To facilitate structured manipulation, gestures are used to apply manipulation rules and animations that demonstrate the use of these rules are introduced. Also, some experimental features that can improve the user’s experience and the usability of the library are presented. Furthermore, it is described how to integrate the library into existing tools. In particular, Classroom Presenter, a system developed to create interactive presentations using a Tablet PC, is extended and used to demonstrate how the library’s features can be used in some teaching scenarios. Although there are limitations in the current system, tests performed with teachers and students indicate that it can help to improve the experience of teaching and learning mathematics, particularly calculational mathematics.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T19:44:39Z
format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
id nottingham-41239
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:44:39Z
publishDate 2012
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-412392025-02-28T11:54:47Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41239/ Structured editing of handwritten mathematics Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira Teaching effectively requires a clear presentation of the material being taught and interaction with the students. Studies have shown that Tablet PCs provide a good technological support for teaching. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to design a structure editor of handwritten mathematics that explores the facilities provided by Tablet PCs. The editor is made available in the form of a class library that can be used to extend existing tools. The central feature of the library is the definition of structure for handwritten mathematical expressions which allows syntactic manipulation of expressions. This makes it possible to accurately select, copy and apply algebraic rules, while avoiding the introduction of errors. To facilitate structured manipulation, gestures are used to apply manipulation rules and animations that demonstrate the use of these rules are introduced. Also, some experimental features that can improve the user’s experience and the usability of the library are presented. Furthermore, it is described how to integrate the library into existing tools. In particular, Classroom Presenter, a system developed to create interactive presentations using a Tablet PC, is extended and used to demonstrate how the library’s features can be used in some teaching scenarios. Although there are limitations in the current system, tests performed with teachers and students indicate that it can help to improve the experience of teaching and learning mathematics, particularly calculational mathematics. 2012-07-19 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41239/1/thesis-AlexandraMendes.pdf Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira (2012) Structured editing of handwritten mathematics. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. maths math mathematics structured editing handwritten handwriting tablet pcs
spellingShingle maths
math
mathematics
structured editing
handwritten
handwriting
tablet pcs
Mendes, Alexandra Sofia Ferreira
Structured editing of handwritten mathematics
title Structured editing of handwritten mathematics
title_full Structured editing of handwritten mathematics
title_fullStr Structured editing of handwritten mathematics
title_full_unstemmed Structured editing of handwritten mathematics
title_short Structured editing of handwritten mathematics
title_sort structured editing of handwritten mathematics
topic maths
math
mathematics
structured editing
handwritten
handwriting
tablet pcs
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41239/