Submitting Homework for Math 204

Submitting Homework

For the Fall 2020 semester, I would like to collect and grade homework online. It might take some experimentation to figure out all the details of how this will work, but I am hopeful that most homework will be written using the LaTeX typesetting system on the overleaf.com web site. Although LaTeX is the preferred method, I will also accept good quality scans of handwritten work to PDF. I understand that it might take you some time to get started with LaTeX, but I hope that you will consider learning it. It is something that will be useful to you in future math classes and in a career in math or other sciences.

Homework will be submitted on Canvas. You will have the option of submitting a URL to a project on overleaf.com or a PDF file.

Using LaTeX

LaTeX is a typesetting system with support for high-quality mathematical content. You might already be familiar with it from previous courses. Using LaTeX to create a document is not like using a word processor. Instead, you write a text file that describes the content using the LaTeX input language, and that text has to be processed to produce the typeset output. Although it is a complex system, it is not all that difficult to use, and I will not expect perfection. The main thing to know is that math is typed between dollar signs, as in $ax^2+bx+c$ or between double dollar signs to display the math on a line by itself, as in $$\sum_{n=1}^\infty\frac{1}{2^n}$$. You will have models to work from, and documentation is available on line. In particular, you can look at the documentation at overleaf.com, which is pretty good:

https://www.overleaf.com/learn.

(For a much shorter basic introduction, see my short guide.) I will do one or more demonstrations of using Overleaf, either in class or over Zoom.

To use overleaf.com, you will need to register for a free account at https://www.overleaf.com/. (You do not need a paid account, and you should ignore all of Overleaf's attempts to get you to sign up for one.)

Work at overleaf.com is organized into "projects." For each homework assignment, you want to create a new project, containing my LaTeX source code for the assignment. There are two ways to do that: You can create a new project and copy-and-paste my source code into the main file of that project, main.tex. Or you can directly view my Overleaf copy of the project and make a copy of the project in your own account. I will provide links to my source code and to my project for each assignment. For example, for the first week's assignment, the source code is at http://math.hws.edu/eck/math204/f20/hw1.tex and the Overleaf project is at https://www.overleaf.com/read/hcbxynzhbjpj. (To make a copy of the Overleaf project, you must first be logged into your Overleaf account.)

Once you have the LaTeX source code of the assignment in an Overleaf project, you will edit the source code to add your solution to each exercise. You will then need to share the project with me by adding my email address, eck@hws.edu, as a "collaborator" with permission to edit the file. When you do this, an email will automatically be sent to me, allowing me to access your project. As a collaborator with edit permission, I will be able to add grading comments to the document. For exercises where you are allowed to submit a second attempt, you can just add your new work to the same document.

Alternative to LaTeX

If you do not want to use LaTeX, as an alternative, I can accept a scanned PDF of handwritten work. You will need to make your entire solution to a homework assignment into a single, neatly scanned PDF, and submit the PDF through Canvas. This probably means using an app on your phone or tablet to scan the work. Free apps are available that can make good quality scans. I have not investigated all of the possibilities, but I have found that the app "Genius Scan" works well. It is available both for Apple's iOS and for Android. There is a paid pro version of Genius Scan, but the free version works well for our purposes. Other apps will also work. For example, the Notes app that is included with newer versions of iOS on iPads and iPhones can scan pages using the camera and save them to PDF.

I have tried Genius Scan on my iPad and on my old Android phone. Some instructions for using the app follow.

Using Genius Scan on iPad

After downloading the free version of Genius Scan onto my iPad, I was able to scan documents as follows. Procedures on your iOS device might not be exactly the same.

The documents should be laid on a contrasting background, so that the edges of the document are easy to find.
Open the Genius Scan app. You should be looking at the "Documents" page. If looking at a document, hit the "<" icon to return to Documents.
To scan a new document, hit the "+" icon in the lower left.
Select "Scan from camera..." from the popup menu.
Point the camera at the first document page, and move it to get the full image in view. Genius Scan should find the document, hilite it in orange, and snap a picture. If not, you can hit the disk (with the rotating boundary), found on the right side of the screen, to take the picture. Go on to the other document pages, if any, and do the same thing. The number in the little disk shows the number of pages that have been photographed.
Hit "Done" above the little disk when you have scanned all your pages.
You should be viewing the first page of the document. Swipe left and right to move between pages.
To adjust the quality, hit the "magic wand" icon in the lower right. You will get "EDIT", "FILTERS", and "FORMAT" tabs in a popup on the bottom.
- If the document page has extra stuff around the edges of the photo, you can get rid of it with "Recrop" under the "EDIT" tab. You will see an orange hilite over the image, and you can drag the corners to match the corners of the page. You probably won't need to do this if the app properly located the page when taking the photo.
- You probably want a black-and-white image. To fix the coloring, hit "Black and white" under the "FILTERS" tab.
- You can still swipe from page to page while the editing tools are visible.
- You can hit the "X" at the top right of the edit tools to close the tools popup.
While viewing the document (with tools hidden), hit the "share" icon in the lower right to export the document as a PDF file. Or, on the Documents page, touch-and-hold the document name to bring up a menu, and choose "Export" in the menu.
The free version of Genius Scan will only let you export to "Files" or to "Email". Email works well to get the document onto another computer, so that you can upload it to Canvas. The "Files" export includes saving to iCloud as well as to the iPad itself. On my device, it also had the option to share to Box, which is the on-line file storage site used by HWS. I have the Box app on my iPad.

Using Genius Scan on Android phone

After downloading the free version of Genius Scan onto my phone, I was able to scan documents as follows. Procedures on your Android device might not be exactly the same.

The documents should be laid on a contrasting background, so that the edges of the document are easy to find.
Open the Genius Scan app. You should be looking at the "Documents" page. If looking at a document, hit the back arrow ("<–") icon to return to Documents.
To scan a new document, hit the Camera icon at the lower right.
Point the camera at the first document page, and move it to get the full image in view. Genius Scan should find the document, hilite it in orange, and snap a picture. If not, you can hit the disk (with the rotating boundary), found on the bottom of the screen, to take the picture. Go on to the other document pages, if any, and do the same thing. The number in the little disk shows the number of pages that have been photographed.
Hit the "check mark" icon next to the little disk when you have scanned all your pages.
You should be viewing the first page of the document. Swipe left and right to move between pages.
You will get "EDIT", "FILTERS", and "FORMAT" tabs below the document.
- If the document page has extra stuff around the edges of the photo, you can get rid of it with "Recrop" under the "EDIT" tab. You will see an orange hilite over the image, and you can drag the corners to match the corners of the page. You probably won't need to do this if the app properly located the page when taking the photo.
- You probably want a black-and-white image. To fix the coloring, hit "Black and white" under the "FILTERS" tab.
- You can still swipe from page to page while the editing tools are visible.
While viewing the document, hit the "share" icon in the upper right to export the document as a PDF file. (The share icon looks like three dots connected by two lines.) Or, on the Documents page, touch-and-hold the document name to select the document, and then hit the share icon at the top.
The free version of Genius Scan will only let you export to "Device memory" or to "Gmail". Email works OK to get the document onto another computer, so that you can upload it to Canvas.