[Hidden-tech] Job Posting: Javascript, Actionscript, and Flash

[Frieda Reichsman]

Hello HT,

A colleague is looking for a full time programmer (40 h/wk) for at least 3 months (through March 2010) and possibly beyond. This would encompass working on two projects described below. Salary range is from $50-75/hour. High quality work could lead to a benefitted position in future.

If interested please contact Paul Horwitz, phorwitz at concord.org.

Cheers,
Frieda
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Frieda Reichsman, PhD
Senior Research Scientist
The Concord Consortium
http://concord.org
25 Love Lane
Concord, MA 01742

-------------- Programmer position ---------------

There are really two jobs: enhancements to MathemAntics, a sequence of mathgames for 5-year olds, sponsored by Educational Network Services (ENS),  and SPARKS, a set of Simulations for Performance Assessments that Report on Knowledge and Skills, sponsored by the Concord Consortium, (CC). Both jobs involve integrating Javascript, Actionscript, and Flash graphic objects. The SPARKS job also includes html and design of web pages.
The SPARKS project

SPARKS consists of a sequence of interactive assessment tasks, implemented in html and running in a browser. Embedded in the html are interactive models of electronic circuits. The graphics for these models are implemented in Flash, with behaviors implemented in Actionscript, the Javascript layer supports a model of electronic circuits that includes the calculation of voltages, currents, and resistances. At present only DC, resistive circuits are supported, but future plans call for the addition of reactances – capacitors and inductances – and AC voltage sources.

The SPARKS models include a breadboard, a digital multimeter, resistances, wires, and a 9-volt battery. Future plans call for the addition of an oscilloscope, a function generator, capacitors, and inductances.

We seek a software developer who can write code that integrates the three different layers of SPARKS, so that, for example, the current display of the multimeter can be communicated to a text box on the web page, or the answers to a multiple-choice question, retrieved via a pull-down menu, can be computed based on model parameters such as the values of various circuit components (themselves selected randomly at the start of each assessment task).

The MathemAntics project

MathemAntics also consists of Flash-based graphic objects with behaviors controlled by Javascript, and deployed in a browser. The implementation is well along, but enhancements and bug fixes are called for.

Reporting

Both the MathemAntics and the SPARKS models monitor and log student actions; both use XML, but with different tags. For both projects we will need to build a server-based reporting function that can report back (to teachers, in the case of MathemAntics, and to students, in the case of SPARKS) by analyzing the student actions according to a set of rubrics to be developed by researchers. Some of the code for accomplishing this already exists, but by no means all. Report generation for SPARKS is implemented in Ruby; at the moment, MathemAntics produces raw XML files that constitute an event-by-event log of every reported action. We have implemented a program that import these files into Excel or some other application for analysis, but we will eventually need to automate the process of report generation to make it easy enough for teachers to use.

Contact: Paul Horwitz, phorwitz at concord.org


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