Replacement for MyMaths?

[LaTrustTec]

Hmm - how small is their development team? Could a rival product be made by a distributed team - this is the twenty-first century and all, development can be done by individuals scattered around the globe, and maths strikes me as the kind of thing that can be split up into lesson-sized chunks quite well. If you're looking at developing your own solution, what sort of resources do you have avilable?

 

We have a couple of iOS developers (myself now learning) and most our techs have experience in multiple programming languages like html/html5/php/javascript but as we are now moving one school into a new building and about to start building another any dev plans are on hold for the meantime.

 

 

 

Sorry, I think I might have been thinking of Mathematica - I know I saw a demo of an output-to-Flash-widget at BETT a few years ago, I just can't remember exactly who from.

 

I like Wolfram. I will check out how useful it is.

[dhicks]

We have a couple of iOS developers (myself now learning) and most our techs have experience in multiple programming languages like html/html5/php/javascript

 

iPad-compatible HTML5 strikes me as a better idea than a dedicated iOS app - wider audience / customer base, for a start. I think there's a way of getting a standard web-based application app-ised so it looks like a standard full-screen iPad app rather than appearing inside a web browser's window, although I doubt (although I could be wrong) that will include much support for iOS-specific events (device tilt) or input handling (swipes).

 

This sounds like the kind of thing that would work as an open source project of some sort - split the curriculum up in to individual classes, provide nice interactive widgets for each one. I'd be surprised if there wasn't already at least a couple of tries at this, although I wouldn't be surpirised if they didn't get off the ground - as you've pointed out, there's a fair volume of work involved in providing for all classes, all years.

 

Framework-wise, this would seem to be the kind of thing a VLE should be perfect for - the VLE should, hopefully, provide the class membership data, user handling, teacher-assigns-pupil-a-task and results tracking stuff. You should be able to write standardised widgets that simply slot in to a VLE, ready to be re-used next year or by whoever you want to give/sell stuff too. I'm guessing checking out Moodle 2.0's features might be an idea if you haven't already - I don't know exactly how well they handle SCORM-based content and so on these days. SCORM creation packages might also be an idea as development packages, although again I don't know how far along most of those are.

[HodgeHi]

The flash plugin on a Mac laptop is terrible. The CPU when watching a video on You Tube is around 90% use until you go stop the playback. Adobe have never released a single version on Flash that has been optimised on the mac platform. Only when Jobs said that Flash would not be supported on the i-devices has this started to slowly change. The last few versions have been better but still no where near the Windows version.

 

It is only when you have had to use Flash on the mac platform for a period of time can you really see how bad it is. The Plugin crashes often (less now though) and the battery drain on the laptops is bad. To have this sort of drain on a device that really requires a decent battery life to have any real use out in the wild would have a massive effect on how well it would sell IMO. I mean if you think about performance when browsing and battery life is shorter than it's rivals, who is going to choose it over the competitors?

 

But with Adobe releasing the flash to iOS converter, is this not an option for the developers?

[SYNACK]

The flash plugin on a Mac laptop is terrible. The CPU when watching a video on You Tube is around 90% use until you go stop the playback. Adobe have never released a single version on Flash that has been optimised on the mac platform. Only when Jobs said that Flash would not be supported on the i-devices has this started to slowly change. The last few versions have been better but still no where near the Windows version.

 

Maybe it is in retaliation for iTunes on the PC

[dhicks]

But with Adobe releasing the flash to iOS converter, is this not an option for the developers?

 

Hang on - is that Flash-to-native-iOS-app or Flash-to-a-bunch-of-HTML/Javascript/SVG/CSS-files?

[SYNACK]

Hang on - is that Flash-to-native-iOS-app or Flash-to-a-bunch-of-HTML/Javascript/SVG/CSS-files?

 

Native iOS unfortunatly:

Developing for iOS using Flash Professional | Adobe Developer Connection

[HodgeHi]

Maybe it is in retaliation for iTunes on the PC

 

Could well be

[HodgeHi]

I also came across this on my search for the answer that Synack gave:

 

Ansca Mobile's advanced mobile app development tool

[dhicks]

Native iOS unfortunatly

 

On the one hand, drat - no handily-available tool to do web-based animation and client-side rapid application development. On the other hand, that saves me bothering to buy a new copy of Flash and, hopefully, leaves the way open for some smaller, quicker companies to bring out a SVG-based package or something.

[SYNACK]

On the one hand, drat - no handily-available tool to do web-based animation and client-side rapid application development. On the other hand, that saves me bothering to buy a new copy of Flash and, hopefully, leaves the way open for some smaller, quicker companies to bring out a SVG-based package or something.

 

Inkscape would probably be a good starting point as it already handles SVG extremely well.

[dhicks]

Inkscape would probably be a good starting point as it already handles SVG extremely well.

 

Indeed, it's what I'm using at the moment. So far I've tried animating it with the SVG library add-on for JQuery - you split the SVG object in to layers in Inkscape, which wind up as named groups in the SVG file, then you can use JQuery to manipulate that SVG file. Unfortunatly, Inkscape doesn't use the ID field of the group tag to name its layers, it uses its own attribute, so it's a bit more messing around to get the ID of the element you want, and Jquery's standard animate function does something screwy if you try and animate an object rotating around a point - it starts and ends in the right place, and rotates at the correct rate, it just does a somewhat random translation in the middle bit, so your object starts wandering around the screen.

 

I think I'm going to try a Javascript physics library instead and see how I get on with that - I'm also interested to see how well the iPad handles Javascript, whether it can manage to do physics calulations in real-time.

[SYNACK]

I think I'm going to try a Javascript physics library instead and see how I get on with that - I'm also interested to see how well the iPad handles Javascript, whether it can manage to do physics calulations in real-time.

 

It all depends on how complicated the physics you are modeling are, the computer on the Apollo spacecraft did physics calculations just fine with less cpu pover than my toaster has. The javascript engines on both Android and the iToys are pretty good so unless your doing full 3D physics simulation your probably good.

 

 

What is an Apple trust?

Edited April 9, 2011 by SYNACK

[Mangahigh]

I had a look at Manga High and alas it is Flash.

 

Some good news: I can confirm that we've started working on a version of Mangahigh.com which will be compatible with iPad. We're hoping to be in a position to release it late this year.

 

Some even better news: As of next week, full access to Mangahigh.com will become COMPLETELY FREE for UK and Irish schools! Schools will be able to use all of our maths games, all of our adaptive questions (now over 45,000!), and all of the analytics tools that are so valuable for teachers. And this is not a temporary thing - we plan to keep access free for UK schools for ever!

 

Schools' budgets are so restricted at the moment, so we're hoping this move will be really helpful for the many schools who have tried Mangahigh, but were previously unable to subscribe.

[dhicks]

Some good news: I can confirm that we've started working on a version of Mangahigh.com which will be compatible with iPad.

 

As an native iPad app, or as a website compatible with the iPad's browser?

 

Schools' budgets are so restricted at the moment, so we're hoping this move will be really helpful for the many schools who have tried Mangahigh, but were previously unable to subscribe.

 

How is it you'll make money?

[Mangahigh]

As an native iPad app, or as a website compatible with the iPad's browser?

 

Compatible with the browser, rather than an app. I'm not on the technical side, but I believe it's something to do with html5!

 

How is it you'll make money?

 

We're still charging schools in much of the World, where education budgets are not being restricted so tightly at the moment. We've had a lot of success in places like Brazil and Australia.

 

We may also look to offer additional features for parents to optionally subscribe to in the future; info on their child's performance, extra revision packages etc. The resources will remain free to UK/US/RoI schools though.

[Arthur]

To be honest I think the MyMaths Flash files would output fine but as I say they don't even seem to want to look down that avenue.

Is there any reason they couldn't use Gordon or SmokeScreen as an interim solution? As you said, they are being very short-sighted.

 

Chris Smoak’s Smokescreen, “a Flash player written in JavaScript”, is an incredible piece of work. It runs entirely in the browser, reads in SWF binaries, unzips them (in native JS), extracts images and embedded audio and turns them in to base64 encoded data:uris, then stitches the vector graphics back together as animated SVG. Open up the Chrome Web Inspector while the demo is running and you can see the SVG changing in real time. Smokescreen even implements its own ActionScript bytecode interpreter. It’s stated intention is to allow Flash banner ads to execute on the iPad and iPhone, but there are plenty of other interesting applications (such as news site infographics). The company behind it have announced plans to open source it in the near future. (Source)

 

Gordon lets you run your SWF movie files in a JavaScript based environment, without the need of any plugins or additional software. It takes advantage of the latest web technologies like SVG to render vector based graphics or Web Workers for enhanced performance and to parse even large SWF’s in the background, without blocking the user interface. Furthermore, it gives you full access and control of the resources, characters and timeline behaviours in your movie via JavaScript or DOM scripting. (Source)

[jamesfed]

Hi,

 

tell your students to download the app 'puffin free' this is an alternative browser and it works

 

Quite a old thread back from 2011 - I would image the chappy has already found an alternative.

[localzuk]

Edit: wrong place! Edited January 20, 2013 by localzuk

[Arthur]

@localzuk. Based on your comment, I don't think you are talking about MyMaths? Edited January 20, 2013 by Arthur

[localzuk]

@localzuk. Based on your comment, I don't think you are talking about MyMaths?

 

Nope! No idea what happened there! I was replying to a completely different thread!! I shall edit and post to the right place methinks!

[Edu-IT]

Quite a old thread back from 2011 - I would image the chappy has already found an alternative.

Only works for a bit, until you pay for the proper app.

[Lakess]

I know this is an old, inactive thread but I have stumbled across a solution to the original question. I too have been looking for a work around and up until know have used a Remote Desktop solution.

 

Puffin web browser allows the ipad to use mymaths and many other flash sites. There is a free version available which works fine or a paid version with additional features.

[CyberNerd]

and for android, Blackberry, Linux?

I don't think MyMaths are going to be around much longer unless they start writing things in a bit more of an accessible format (HTML5) for the type of devices that students own.

[Lakess]

Sorry for lack of detail. I'm using puffin web browser on IOS. Not sure about android or Linux.

[tanton]

Mathster.com claims to work in any browser without the need for flash.