TSSFL TECHNOLOGY STACK

Training During Secondary School Teachers Zonal Mathematics Workshop Organized by Mathematical Association of Tanzania (MAT/CHAHITA) for Coastal Zone, at Dar Es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT), From 14th to 18th September 2020. Training carried out on 17th September 2020.

Title: Open Source Software and Web-based Technologies to Enhance Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Name: Dr. Elimboto Yohana

Affiliation: University of Dar Es Salaam, Dar Es Salaam University College of Education

This presentation explores the state-of-the-art TSSFL Open Discussion Forums cloud platform and demonstrates how it can be utilized to stimulate and incept an impactful take-off of technology-assisted learning in Tanzania, Africa, and beyond, making it a teaching standard in our schools and other academic institutions.

1. In teaching and learning, digital tools help to enhance understanding by making abstract concepts easy and meaningful, hence motivating learners to approach and solve real-life problems more confidently and promisingly.
2. TSSFL ODF comprises a versatile set of interactive subforums and integrated technologies that can be used by a broader audience to exchange information and knowledge for the purpose of solving real-life problems and/or engaging the members in various beneficial life experiences.
3. In particular, let's explore how to deploy TSSFL ODF embedded software technologies to facilitate a teaching approach that is highly unconstrained by time, location, technology, and communication model to enhance interaction, speed, flow, and accuracy of instructional materials in order to increase performance and optimize teaching and learning outcomes.
4. We will be navigating various forums/subforums to see numerous practical examples on how integrated software can be used in teaching and learning.
5. Below are technologies in action.

• GDB Online Debugger for rapid software development teaching and learning.
• SageMath Cloud (Sage, Python, R, Maxima, Octave, Macaulay2, etc.,) for computing and visualizations, go here, and run Python and R examples.
• GeoGebra software -- an interactive geometry, algebra, statistics, and calculus for teaching mathematics and science.
• Desmos Calculator for graphing functions, plotting data, evaluating equations, calculus, transformations, and for performing other tasks.
• A dedicated R programming compute engine for statistical computations and graphics (see here also).
• Embeddable Google Colaboratory notebooks for data science, AI, and Machine Learning research, or for just any task that can be carried out with Python programming language,.
• LaTeX and MathJax software systems for documents preparation (see this post, check this one as well.)
• TSSFL ODF LaTeX files access to Overleaf for rapid document preparation and collaborations.
• However, TSSFL ODF allows the following to be embedded into it:
  
  1. Interactive GeoGebra applets, let's see few examples:
  2. Similar Triangles
  3. Derivatives
  4. Vector cross product
  5. General parabola
  6. Projectile motion
  7. Numeracy -- multiplications for kids
  8. Several numeracy applets
• Interactive Highcharts charts and editor.
• Editable Google Docs: Forms and Surveys, Slides/Presentations, Quizzes, Spreadsheets and Documents.
• Graphical animations:
  
  1. HCL movie
  2. Plotly animations
  3. Plotly drug discovery visualizations
  4. Another example of Plotly charts
• TSSFL ODF supports YouTube, TED, Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more other media/video embedding (including live streaming with Zoom/YouTube), see an example, check this too.
• See also TSSFL ODF-Plotly integration and many other activities that can be carried out at TSSFL ODF:
  1. Welcome post
  2. Welcome post Swahili version

In summary, the aforementioned technological integrations are standby and ready to be deployed out of the box in real-time to address numerous bottlenecks that are often encountered in teaching, learning, and research.

TSSFL ODF architecture and environment thus override the burden of software installation, configuration, maintenance, and upgrades since the most important teaching, learning, and research tools are natively integrated into it.

Some photos taken during the event:

Yesterday, on 10th October 2020, we extended our presentation on how to use TSSFL Open Discussion Forums in teaching and learning. This presentation took place at Magu Secondary School, where in addition to the previous presentation, we talked about how students and teachers can benefit from PhET interactive simulations, and Plotly interactive and editable visualizations, both of which can be seamlessly integrated on this forum, see

1. PhET Interactive Simulations by The University of Colorado Boulder

2. Embedding Plotly Interactive and Editable Visualizations

We however discussed a more explicit approach to embedding GeoGebra applets

Here are some photos that were taken during the event: