Emle - Requirements

A - Action

1. Emle - Eletronic Mathematics Laboratory Equipment.
2. Teachers can have students use labs to provide an experience in math concepts that are not possible with physical world materials and equipment.
3. Since hard science labs routinely provide students with this kind of experience they can be used as examples for understanding the goals of Emle.
4. Labs provide directed actions using pieces of equipment.
5. Labs have directions on the use of the eqipment.
6. Labs have directions on the concepts to be observed or examined.
7. Various pieces of equipment are combined for each lab.
8. Each piece of equipment is used in a variety of labs.
9. High school labs do not require extensive traning to use the equipment.
10. These labs are to be targetd to grade levels at and below high school including elementary.
11. The labs should require as little knowledge and skill as possible about computer input models (GUI).
12. The interface should prevent the student from being able to select invalid input in many of the labs.
13. For example, if the lab is to only work with proper fractions, and the input is via radio buttons then buttons that would produce an improper fraction should be disabled.
14. The interface should feel more like a phyical item rather than like a typical GUI that has an OK/Cancel action required to cause a change.
15. For example, take the case of a radio button input that controls the display of a fraction in a pie chart with the denominator 1 and the numerator 4. If the student changes the value of the numerator from 4 to 3 then immediately the display should change from a grapicg of 1/4 to one of 1/3. If the student then changes the denominator from 1 to 2 then the graphic should immediately change from the 1/3 to 2/3.

B - Infrastruture Data

1. Each lab is to have a UDEF like value to identify the knowledge, skill and abilities (KSAs) involved.
2. The prerequisist KSAs need to use each lab are to associated with each lab.
3. The KSAs that are to be taught are to associated with each lab.
4. There are two categories of KSAs, first in the use of Emle and second the math subject area KSAs.
5. These KSAs are intended to allow the text book lessions and the labs to be linked to each other.
6. The text book linkage should allow details to includ lesson topics and problems types down the the level of indiviual problems.
7. For example, like Saxon third edition books have links from each problem back to the the lesson number where the topic was taught (except that the detail should be at one level more detailed in that the lesson number may cover multiple topics and the UDEF like level should be to each topic in the lesson).
8. The teacher should be able to access the linkage between labs and text book lessons.
9. The teacher should be able to add to existing lab documentation.
10. The teacher or other developers should be able to create new labs using existing equipment.
11. The labs should track student use and actions.
12. The level of tracking should consist of both the specific labs used and the internal usage inside each lab.
13. The teacher should be able use the lab tracking for management of student progress.

C - Implementaion Device Issues

1. The software should run on as many standards based devices and systems as possible.
2. The physical size of the device should be able to be as unlimited as is possible for the function being performed.
3. Examples of devices are: a standard desktop web browser and a cell phone with an embedded web browser.
4. A lab may depend upon the size limit of the device.
5. Functional issues are to rule over glitz in the presentaion.
6. Ease of editing items like teacher documentation changes are to have standards based issues rule over bad habits of proprietary editors used in school.
7. The more common levels (student, teacher, lab writer, equipment developer) should be easier to use.
8. For example, the students needs no OK/Cancel for action. The teacher can enter documentation with plain text. A lab writer can use existing equipment without knowing JavaScript to create new labs. But the equipment devolper may need to know programming languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM, XML, XSLT, XML Schema and XPath.