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Web-native textbooks use practice questions and animations to improve student performance to help learn and visualize concepts. Creating practice questions and animations is time intensive. This paper investigates whether having students create and/or rate practice questions and animations--student crowdsourcing--can lead to good quality items. For animations, we conducted experiments involving 587 participants from a basic computing technology course. Students were asked to create animations of a topic, and a professor and fellow students rated those animations. Some students showed the ability to create quality animations: 2 of 19 completed animations were rated a "5" on a 1 to 5 scale (5 is best) by a professor / professional animation author. Furthermore, some students showed the ability to effectively rate student-created animations; the top 10% of student ratings was strongly correlated with the professor ratings with R-value = 0.88 (p-value < 0.001). For questions, we conducted experiments involving 25 participants from an introductory embedded programming course. Students were asked to create and rate practice questions for various embedded programming topics. Some students could effectively rate questions: the average of the top 20% of student ratings was strongly correlated with the professor rating with R-value = 0.82 (p-value = 0.02). However, students did not show the ability to create good question; no student's question was professor-rated above a 4. The common problem seen was an inability to write correct and precise English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For large enrollment courses, such as Statics, Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Solid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, the use of computers (laptops and tablets) in the classroom can save instructor time. However, there are numerous problems with computer-based exams, especially when the students are allowed to access online course materials (eBook, homework, etc). Previously, the author used student-supplied laptops for web-based exams in the classroom, but this has become problematic over the years due to the increased sophistication of communication software (Twitter, Facebook, Skype, SnapChat, etc.). It is no longer reasonable to expect the instructor and TAs to be able to monitor student laptops during exams. To solve this issue, android-based tablets with special apps have been developed and implemented into two fundamental engineering courses, Fluid Mechanics and Solid Mechanics (Mechanics of Materials). The paper first examines both the selection process for the Android-based tablets and the development process for applications (apps) required for testing. Both Android and iOS tablets were considered. Based on cost and ease of system customization, Android-based tablets were selected. Two different apps were developed for use for tests. The first app, "examApp" permits the student to access the online text and it records the student's choices. It has numerous security features that limit access to the exam only on the tablets provided and only during the test time. All graphics are vector-based so they are crisp on high resolution screens. Included in the examApp was an admin (or instructor) page that provides the instructor and TAs real-time information about the exam while in progress. This includes scores, percent correct for a given problem, students activity, graphs, and direct communications to all students. The second app, "eBookApp", allows the student access to the online eBook used for the class. However, it blocks the student from other online web site or material. The Android operating system itself was modified to limit access to standard apps like email, app stores, social networks, and even browsers. The apps were developed using Abobe AIR development framework due to its relatively easy development of web and mobile apps when compared to native programming or HTML5 with JavaScript. AIR also avoids programming the same app three times (web browsers, Android and iOS). The successful results (and lessons learned) using tablets for in-class testing for multiple engineering courses are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]