EqualsOne

Inspiration

Remote learning still possesses challenges, particularly for math class. Taking digital notes is troublesome since you can't properly utilize mathematical notation on a keyboard. The level of interaction with the materials is limited due to the teacher not being physically present to showcase a core concept. And notably, teachers look to utilize a handful of resources to better convey information, leading to a lot of switching between applications. Our goal is to make the teaching and learning process easier by creating a single platform with tools and real time interactivity to make learning more streamlined. It’s all in a place that Equals One.

What it does

The hub currently includes tools to construct lessons with different forms of interaction, be it manual notes on a notepad, interactive graphs, video lessons, and any other tool teachers wish to embed.

How we built it

Approaching this project with an introductory skill level, we implemented an example site through Google Sites, but recognize the strong benefits of a more sophisticated implementation through a tool such as Figma. We implemented embedded versions of the popular graphing application Desmos.

Challenges we ran into

Our skill level was fairly baseline, so we were unfortunately not able to implement a lot of core functions that we will address in our what's next category. We did not know how to do web based implementations of features such as drag and drop, live lectures, and a handwriting interface.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our core fundamentals and what we wish to approach with the project moving forward! We take pride in the idea of making math more interactive, especially moving forward from programs such as WebAssign that students do not find very interactive.

What we learned

We have ideas for implementations of functions we would like, and know about the tools now we would use to implement them in say a future iteration of our project. We also learned the challenge of moving quickly in a hackathon!

What's next for EqualsOne

There are numerous features we wish to implement.

Real time interactive presentations with a lecture: a teacher would provide a custom room to an "online classroom" where they can handwrite equations and functions that the student can simply "drag over" to their personal notebook.
Implementation of a handwriting recognition API that can successfully convert handwritten equations to Desmos notation functions
History tree of the initial equations provided by the teacher and any modifications made by the students so that students can cross reference how the instructor may have done it with any modification they may have made in their notes
Editor suite for teachers so they may customize math assignments (ex. take in handwritten work, have math problem checks)