	Jupyter at Bryn Mawr College
Public notebooks: /services/public/dblank

1. Activity Magic¶

The Activity Magic is a method of giving quizzes, polls, etc. to a group of users on a jupyterhub server.

In the current implementation, it acts like a Classroom Response System (also called "clickers", audience response system, personal response systems, student response system, or electronic response system).

The main pedagogical use is for implementing instantaneous anonymous polling for gaging student understanding.

Table of Contents¶

1. Activity Magic

1.1 Requirements¶

To use, you will need:

jupyterhub - for multi-user notebook server
metakernel - for the activity magic
calysto - for barcharts

1.1.1 Install tl;dr¶

Shell: pip install metakernel
Shell: pip install calysto
Notebook: from metakernel import register_ipython_magics
Notebook: register_ipython_magics()

1.2 Workflow¶

Activity magic works as follows:

instructor creates a poll using the %%activity cell magic defining a poll via JSON
poll appears for verification
students use the same file, but via a line magic
everyone should make their choice
instructor shows bar chart of all choices
everyone clicks on "Next" to proceed to the next question

1.3 Demonstration¶

Here is the docs on %%activity magic:

%%activity?

Docstring:
%%activity FILENAME - make an activity from
  a JSON structure

This magic will construct a Python file from the cell's
content, a JSON structure.

Example:
    %%activity /home/teacher/activity1
    {"activity": "poll",
     "instructors": ["teacher01"],
     "items": [{"id": "...",
                "type": "multiple choice",
                "question": "...",
                "options": ["...", ...]
               }, ...]
    }

In this example, users will load
/home/teacher/activity1
File:      /usr/lib/python3.4/site-packages/metakernel-0.10.5-py3.4.egg/metakernel/magics/activity_magic.py

Here is an actual poll with three questions:

%%activity /home/dblank/activity1

{"activity": "poll",
 "instructors": ["dblank"],
 "items": [
      {"id": "1", 
       "question":  """Which of the following will print "Hello" 5 times without errors?""", 
       "type": "multiple choice",
       "options": [
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
for (int i=0; i < 5; i++) {
    println("Hello");
}
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
println("Hello");
println("Hello");
println("Hello");
println("Hello");
println("Hello");
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
int i = 0;
while (i < 5) {
    println("Hello");
    i++;
}
</pre>""",
        "All of the above",
        "None of the above",
    ]},
        
    {"id": "2", 
     "question":    """Which of the following is a function definition?""", 
     "type": "multiple choice",
     "options":    [
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
void draw() {
}
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
rect(10, 10, 50, 50);
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
drawBunny(mouseX, mouseY, 50, 100);
</pre>""",
        "All of the above",
        "None of the above",
        ]},
      {"id": "3", 
       "question":     """Which of the following has parameters?""", 
       "type": "multiple choice",
       "options":     [
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
void draw() {
}
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
void drawRect(float x, float y, float w, float h) {
    rect(x, y, w, h);
}
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
void drawBunny() {
    rect(10, 20, 100, 150);
}
</pre>""",
        "All of the above",
        "None of the above",
        ]},
     {"id": "4", 
      "question":  """Which of the following is a function call?""", 
      "type": "multiple choice",
      "options": [
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
void draw() {
}
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
rect(10, 10, 50, 50);
</pre>""",
"""<pre style="width: 600px">
drawBunny(mouseX, mouseY, 50, 100);
</pre>""",
        "2 and 3",
        "None of the above",
        ]},
    ]
}

When executed in a live cell, it shows the following:

Instructors in the list will be able to click on the "Results" button to show the barchart of choices.

Students enter:

%activity /home/dblank/activity1

and are ready for discussing issues.

1.4 JSON Details¶

The activities are stored in a JSON-like format as follows.

1.4.1 Top level¶

{
    "activity": "poll",
    "instructors": ["userid", ...],
    "items": [...],
    "results_filename": "/home/user/results.txt"
}

activity is an activity type
instructors is optional, and lists those user id's for which the "Results" button will appear.
item is a list of items specific to this activity type
results_filename is optional; if unspecified, it will be the name of the activity file + ".results". The system will automatically create it and make it writable by everyone

1.4.2 Activity types¶

1.4.2.1 poll¶

Poll has the following structure for an item:

{
    "id": "1",
    "type": "multiple choice",
    "question": "The actual question?",
    "options": ["choice 1", "choice 2", ...]
}

Currently, all of the poll items are strings that will be rendered as HTML. Future plans include adding all widget types (LaTeX, text, etc.) The options are currently limited to 5 choices or less. Also, choices are listed as 1 through 5.

id is a unique string identification that you create
type is a poll activity type
question is the question to ask
options is a list of the multiple choices

1.5 Results file format¶

question id::user id::datetime::choice

The barchart is rendered by calysto's graphics.

Try it out! Feedback welcome!

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