Mark Liffiton

Tools

CodeHelp

CodeHelp is a tool that uses large language models (the technology behind ChatGPT and other recent language-based AI tools) to help students with programming without just handing them a solution. It's designed to be used in classes as an additional form of learning support alongside TAs and instructors.

CodeHelp is open source, part of the Gen-Ed framework for building web applications that use generative AI in education. The code is hosted on GitHub: Gen-Ed.

Clicker (working title)

Clicker (just a working title, not really named yet) is a simple classroom response system. As an instructor, you create a room, students join via QR code on mobile devices or by typing a link, and you can quickly and easily ask questions, collect responses, and show the results back to the class.

Code2tex

Code2tex was written to help my TAs and I grade programming assignments. It makes a simple but nicely-formatted LaTeX file from source code, with basic headers and syntax highlighting. The .tex file can then be easily made into a PDF, making it easy to mark up the submission in software like PDF-XChange Viewer or Xournal and return an electronic copy to the student.

Example: hello_worlds.pdf, generated from a variety of Hello World programs.

The code is hosted on GitHub: code2tex.

Banner Fixer

Banner, IWU's student information system, has a pretty bad UI. So I wrote a userscript to fix lots of UI/UX annoyances and issues.

Some of the improvements:

To use it, first install the Tampermonkey browser extension. Then, after the extension is installed and active, use the link below to install the script. The improvements will then show up in IWU's Banner site automatically. Feel free to report problems to me or just let me know if there is some additional feature you might find useful.

Download/Install Banner Fixer: Banner_Fixer.user.js