Practical Unicode Logic for Online Tech Courses

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Practical Unicode Logic for Online Tech Courses

• Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D. Information Technology
  Services
• Penn State University
• ejp10_at_psu.edu

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Outline

• The Courses The Characters
• With a little Flash and Video
• Putting it on the Web (fonts equations)
• Help for the Students
• Glyph Challenges
• Math Support vs. Foreign Language Support
• Lessons Learned

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The Campus

• Penn State
• Blended Learning Initiative
• Online or Hybrid (online face 2 face)
• Lots of online study guides, multimedia, quizzes
• Two Courses
• Phil 12 (Logic) ME 300 (Thermodynamics)

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Symbolic Logic

• Phil 12  Symbolic Logic
• Required for Criminal Justice Major
• Completely Online
• Glyph Repertoire ? ? ? ? ? ? ? P Q
• Proof Tables, Truth Trees
• Videos Demos of Logic Problems

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A Typical Proof

• Notice the quantity of exotic glyphs embedded
  in text with English glyphs

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Video Title
Titles in LiveType. Video on PC Tablet
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Thermodynamics

• ME 300
• Taught at multiple campuses
• Lecture notes online
• Glyph Repertoire ?,?,?,,?,P,?,q?,?,?
• MIA q? and ?? (too new)
• Equations, sketches, flash animation

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Some Equations
??H,in ??C,in ??H,out ??C,out
Wnet ? dWrev ? dWsys
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Some Multimedia
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Word Then HTML

• Word for draft of contents
• Two Platforms
• Developers on Mac OS X 10.5 with Office 2008
  Arial Unicode MS
• Instructors on PC Arial Unicode MS

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Beware Insert Symbol

• Word includes logic symbols on Symbol palette,
  but pulls glyphs from Private Use Area

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Viable Alternatives

• Character Map (Win)/Palette (Mac)
• Click Insert one at a time
• Numeric Alt Codes (Win Office)
• E.g. n ALT8745
• Numeric Option Codes (Mac)
• E.g. n Option2229
• Custom Logic Keyboard
• Minimal disruption once enabled

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Custom Logic Keyboard

• Built by Mac developer (me)
• Ukelele from SIL
• Manual adjustment of Keyboard XML
• Keystrokes easy to memorize
• n ShiftOption7 (Shift7 )
• Available in most Mac applications
• Transitioned from Phil 12 to ME 300
• May be possible on Windows

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Beware Font Switches

• MS Office for Mac switches fonts
• If current font does not have the correct glyph
• Common Times New Roman gt Math 2
• Mac Times New Roman ? Win TNR
• ?, ? on Mac TNR, but not Win
• Keep to Arial Unicode MS

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Adobe Know Thy Fonts

• Good Unicode support, but must manually switch
  font.

Good Font Choices Not So Good
Need to ensure large glyph base in Math/Latin/Greek/Symbol blocks  Arial Unicode MS (Win)  Lucida Grande (Mac)  Linux Libertine (free)  Arev Sans (free)  Unicode Symbols (free) These fonts have critical gaps once content becomes too technical.  Times New Roman  Verdana/Tahoma/Trebuchet  Palatino Greek yes, but missing logic symbols and ? and ?.
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Fonts On to the Web

• CSS should specify alternate fonts
• Unicode Symbols, Lucida Grande, Arial Unicode MS
• Need font list for IE 6 and earlier
• Provide link to freeware fonts
• Use larger sizes for new or confusing glyphs,
  especially if
• subscripts/superscripts involved or italicized
• I prefer serif whenever possible

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Equations on the Web

• How about Math ML?
• Firefox/Internet Explorer code incompatible
• No MathML support on Safari
• Resorted to
• Unicode text if one 1ine
• Images (with ALT tag) if multiline or
• Tables (need invisible images with ALT tag)

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Single vs.Multiline
??H,in ??C,in ??H,out ??C,out
Wnet ? dWrev ? dWsys
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Glyph Challenges

• Doublestruck P/Q (or P/Q)
• Hard to read at 12 point (P/Q)
• Preferred Unicode Symbols font over standard over
  sans serifP/Q vs P/Q
• Therfore Doublestruck had its own CSS class

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Helping the Students

• Option 1 Training
• Students can learn to input Unicode
• Butrequires instructor confidence
• Necessary for general education course?
• Option 2 Cut/Paste from Templates
• Ideal for more complicated diagrams

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Pick A Proof
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Dots over Q and V

• Precomposed Q-Dot and V-Dot not in Unicode
  standard
• ? in because of Old Irish ?? (seriously)
• What about combining diacritic?
• OK for q? and v? but not Q? and V?
• Cursor placement VERY tricky in editing
• Resorted to Q ? and V ?
• Still text and not an image

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Q ? scans

• Use of dotted Q in 2 textbooks

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V ? scans

• Use of dotted V in textbook Web

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V ??

• V can be velocity or volume
• NOT strictly a Unicode problem
• Thermo Textbook uses
• V for velocity
• ?? for volume and ?? for specific volume
• We used
• V for volume, v for specific volume
• V for velocity

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Script V (??)in 2 Sources
Textbook 1 V volume ?? velocity
Textbook 2 V velocity ?? volume
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Math vs Language Support

• Awareness
• Most foreign language professionals have heard of
  Unicode
• Math/Science?
• Math has Large Character Set
• Latin A-D, Greek, Arrows, Numeric Symbols,
  Alphabetic Symbols Math Blocks, Miscellaneous
  Symbols

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Different Workflows

• Language
• Setup input keyboard
• Plain text
• Many script-specific fonts available
• Math
• Equation Editor or Insert tools preferred
• MathML/LaTex assumed
• Complete fonts?

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Lessons Learned?

• Technology doable, but tricky to navigate
• Upgrades can be slow
• Custom keyboards saved my sanity
• Every course/glyph has its own story
• IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT

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