Making up homework problems  is an activity that every math teacher does.   Often, it is simply a matter of choosing some problems from a textbook, or a list of problems already made up.  But it should include some problems that you have had a hand in constructing, possibly alone or working with a group of teachers.  When you make up quizzes and tests for your students, you are engaging in problem creation.    It is work, and takes effort.  But it is worthwhile and interesting work, especially if you have some interesting ways to make up problems.

George Polya (1887-1985), a Hungarian mathematician, wrote "How to solve it." for high school students in 1957.  Here is his four step method.

Understand the problem:    Read the problem over carefully and ask yourself:  Do I know the meaning of all the words?  What is being asked for?  What is given in the problem?  Is the given information sufficient (for the solution to be unique)?  Is there some inconsistent or superfluous information which is given? By way of checking your understanding, try restating the problem in a different way.

Design a plan for solving the problem:  In essence, decide how you are going to work on the problem.  This involves making some choices about what strategies to use.   Some possible strategies are:  

Draw a picture or diagram  --  making a picture which relates the information given to what is asked for can often lead to a solution.

Make a list  -- this is a strategy which is especially useful  in problems where you need to count the members of a set.

Solve smaller versions of the problem and look for a pattern  --  almost any problem can be made simpler in some way. By working out simpler versions, you can often see patterns which help solve the original problem.

Decompose the problem  -- Many problems can be broken into a  series of smaller problems. This strategy can turn a problem which on first glance seems intractable into something more doable.

Use variables and write an equation  -- the method of algebra. Very useful in a lot of problems.  See the section below for more details and examples.

Carry out the plan :  Spend a reasonable amount of time trying to solve the problem using your plan.  If you are not successful, go back to step 2.  If you run out of strategies,  go back to step 1.  If you still don't have any luck, talk the problem over with a classmate.

Look back :  After you have a proposed solution, check your solution out.  Is it reasonable?  Is it unique? Can you see an easier way  to solve the problem?  Can you generalize the problem?  

A huge number of problems that you or I make up can be solved by setting up and solving a system of equations.  Here is a method for setting up and solving such a problem.

• Name.  Identify the answers (unknowns) needed and give them names: x, y, z etc are good names for unknowns.  Identify the given quantities (parameters)  and give them names. Notes:  a, b, d are good names for parameters, but they can be called anything.  It is good practice to give names to the given parameters.  When you solve the equations you can assign the given values.
• Set up equations.  Write down all the equations you can think of relating the unknowns and the parameters.    Notes:  You may have to read the problem several times, and use what you know to write down the equations.   Generally speaking, if you have at least as many equations as you do unknowns then you can stop.
• Solve the equations.   Find the mathematical solutions to the system of equations you have written down for the unknowns in terms of the parameters.
• Solve the problem.   Inspect the solutions you have found and discard the ones which don't answer the original problem.
• Check.  Verify that the solutions that are left indeed are the answer needed.

Problem:    Given  that the area of a rectangle is 40 square feet, and its height is 10 feet, find its width.

Solution:   Call its width x. That is the unknown.  Call the area A and the length b.  These are the parameters.

We know the area of a rectangle is its height times its width,  that is, .   Since we only have one unknown, we can stop and solve the equation for x in terms of A and b:     feet.   For the original problem.  x = 40/10 = 4 feet.

Problem:  Given that 1 hp pump can fill a tank in 30 minutes and a 1.5 hp pump can fill it in 20 minutes, how long would it take to fill the tank when both pumps are working?

Solution:   Let  t be the time in minutes it takes for both of them to fill the tank together.  So in 1 minute, working together they fill 1/t of the tank.   The first motor fills 1/30 of the tank in 1 minute, and the second motor fills 1/20 of the tank.  So together  

1/t = 1/30 + 1/20 of the tank.  Solve for t to get t = 600/50 = 12 minutes.    Note:    If the first motor fills in  a minutes and the second in b minutes, then  the equation is  1/t = 1/a + 1/b, so t = 1/(1/a+1/b) = a*b/(a+b).

Listed below are some ways that you can use to  provide inspriration, motivation, or  focus while you are trying to think up problems.

This is a way people do research in mathematics.  Start with an interesting problem you can solve and try to think up related problems.  There are some standard ways to do this.   We describe some of them briefly here, and in more detail later.

Example.   Jack has 5 apples and Jill has 3 pears.  How many pieces of fruit do they have together?  Answer:  5 + 3 or 8 pieces of fruit.

Parameterized problem:    Jack has a apples and Jill has 3 pears.  How many pieces of fruit do they have together?   Answer:  a + 3 pieces of fruit.

Solving a parameterized version of a problem exposes the method of solution and leads naturally to other investigations.

4.  What are some other interesting questions you can ask with the same givens as in the problem?

Virtually any problem will be stated in some context or setting, and so without fail, there will be other questions you can ask in that context.

Example.   A  famous problem from plane geometry is to show that if three points in the plane are noncollinear, then they are on a circle.  What are some other questions you might ask in this setting?

Question.    Must any 4 noncollinear but coplanar points lie on a circle?

Solution:   This one is easy.  The first three points determine a circle.  Now the 4th point is probably not going to lie on that circle, and in any case we could pick another 4th point that does not lie on it.  So, the answer is, no, 4 random points need not lie on a circle.

Question.    Choose 3 noncollinear points at random in the plane.  What is the probability that they lie in a semicircle? QED

Solution:  This one is not so easy.  Call the points , , and  . Call C the circle thru the points. Call  the semicircle of C going counterclockwise from   for i = 1,2, and 3. Now all three points lie in a semicircle if and only if they lie in exactly one of the 's.   Since the points were chosen at random, the probability that  and  both lie on  is    =  .  Since there are 3 mutually exclusive possibilities, we get a probability of     that 3 randomly chosen points in the plane lie in a semicircle. QED

If the problem is one you haven't had luck in solving, then by asking and solving related questions, sometimes you can sneak up on the solution to the original problem.

The setting for a problem is there before the problem was posed, so you don't have to start with a problem, you can take an interesting setting and look for problems in that setting.

Quadrille paper.    

There is no end to the interesting problems you can pose using a sheet of quadrille paper.   For example,  

Problem.   Make a 2 by 4 rectangular grid, and insert the digits 1 thru 8 in the cells so that no two adjacent cells contain concurrent numbers.   Note:   Two cells that touch on an edge or at a corner are adjacent.

Pyramids

Let B be a region in the xy-plane and let v be a point above the plane. The  pyramid  P  with base B and vertex v is the union of the set of segments connecting v with a point in B.  For each edge E of B, the union of the segments connecting v with a point e of E is called the side of P based  on E.  The edges of P consist of the segments which are edges of one or more sides of B.  The vertices of P are defined similarly.   There are a ton of questions you could ask about pyramids.  For example.

Problem.   How many edges will a pyramid P have?   What is it's volume?   How would you define the interior of a pyramid?

Inscribed figures

If P and Q are convex polygons, and each vertex of P lies on a side of Q, then P is said to be inscribed in Q.   Give some examples of pairs of polygons P and Q with P inscribed in Q.

This is an experiment I have tried.  Rip pages at random out of an old magazine and distribute them to your class, one to each student.  Give them 15 minutes to come up with two interesting problems motivated by what they have read in their page.   You may be pleasantly surprised by what you get, and in any case it is a good exercise for the students.

Have a set of 'standards'

We can make up interesting homework problems which exercise and test a mastery of any set of standards.    

It is an interesting and important exercise to make up course standards for the courses we teach.   

The student will be able to:

1.   use the associative, commutative, and distributive properties of addition and mulitplication to decide if two expressions for numbers obtained by combining other numbers (possibly unspecified) using those operations  represent the same number;

2.   state the definitions of subtraction and division, and say what the basic properties of these operations are;  

3.   do item 1 with the operations of subtraction and division thrown in;

4.   .....

Let's make a start on a set of standards for a course we teach (Algebra I?)    Break up into teams of 3 or 4.  Choose a name for your team.   One member of the team will put in the team answers to the question below, either into a Maple worksheet or a Word document.  This member will post the homework referred to in exercise 7 below, and toggle downloading.  

• 1. List 5 standards against which you want to measure your students at the end of the course.
• 2. Now arrange these standards in order of importance. (This may or may not have been in the order you listed them.)
• 3. Now arrange these standards in a logical order. (standard B is listed after standard A if in order to satisfy B, the student needs to satisfy A)
• 4. Make up 3 problems which you would give to a student to measure them against the standards.  One of the problems should have a diagram  which helps to understand the problem.
• 5. For each problem, which of your standards does it measure?
• 6. Parameterize each problem with at least one parameter
• 7. Compose a WHS homework with title 'Standards Based Homework' of multiplicity 4 using your 3 problems, and post it.
• 8. Each member of the team will run a check of the homework, looking for mathematical, typographical or grammatical errors in the statement of the problem, and mathematical, or syntactical errors in the answers to the problems..

>

The source.   Login to WHS, go to Teacher Resources,  and click on Authoring Tools.  At the bottom of the page, click on Author Documents and print it out.  This gives a succinct description of all the WHS tags, including the answer format tags.  Below are several examples of problems which have been composed by hand using the tags.  This can be done in any text editing program such as word 2000, edit, etc.  

Homework Assignments from Maple Worksheets

In order for the worksheet to be usable by WHS, it must have the format which we are about to describe. Note that the current implementation of WHS should accept any worksheet input in the specified format. It does, in fact, accept certain no longer supported formats in the interest of backwards compatibility.

The lines of text in the spreadsheet can be divided into two classes:

Control lines are instructions to WHS. They specify such things as the beginning of a question, the location of an input widget such as a text box, and the beginning of a part of the worksheet that should be ignored by WHS. Control lines have a control entity, strings of a particular form which always contains an underscore character. The precise format of these entities are described below. But, it is recommended that worksheet authors should simply avoid use of the underscore character entirely except in control lines. Other lines are simply referred to as normal text lines .  

Input Ignored by WHS

The following sections are ignored by WHS:

All sections prior to the first control line containing H_, T_ or Q_ are ignored.

All sections with a control line containing SKIP_ and all immediately following sections with control lines not containing T_ or Q_ are ignored by WHS.

In more detail, when an assignment is requested, one can specify a numerical version number. There are several possibilities:

If the version is -1, one gets the Common version. If the multiplicity is m, then this consists of questions whose numbers are 1 mod m.

If one requests the Personal version, then one gets the version whose version number is equal to the account id of the user.

One can specify a Specific version by giving the version number.

One can specify a Specific version 0 or simply leave the version number field blank. This causes a random version to be selected.

Versions other than the Common version are made up by pseudo random selection of one problem from the last m - 1 of the problems in each group of m contiguous problems.

Header examples :

1. A homework with a 56 question database and a header H_[5;;6;0;1]  will have 16 questions in each retrieved homework.  The first 6 will be unnumbered and will be the first 6 questions in the database. The remaining 10 questions will be numbered and will be the first question in each group of 5 questions in the database counting from the 7th question in the database, if the version is -1.  For other version numbers, the questions are chosen from the last 4 in each group of 5 counting from the 7th.  Any videos that are associated with the homework are accessible from the top of any drive they are stored on.

2.  If the header in the above setting is changed to H_[5;;-7;0;1], the only thing that changes is that the problems occur in the same order they are listed in the database.

The remaining sections not ignored by WHS can be grouped into questions. Each question consists of :

A mandatory question section whose control line contains QM_ or QN_

A series of answer sections.  There should be at least one in a QM_ question. The control line is identified by the string Ax_ where x is one of the upper case letters C, F, H, L, R, and S. The letter specifies particular answer formats. In addition, for QN_ questions, one can use X.

Question Control Line Formats

If the character immediately following the underscore is an upper case N, then the correct answer is not displayed when the student submits an incorrect answer to the question. Otherwise, the correct answer is displayed when an incorrect answer is submitted. The correct answer is always displayed when a correct answer is submitted.

Correct answer specification occurs immediately after the underscore character (or the letter N following the underscore character. It should occur for both QM_ and QN_ questions, even though the answers are ignored in the case of QN_ questions. The specification is enclosed in square brackets and consists of a sequence of at least two quantities. The quantities are semicolon separated. The first quantity is the error bound; its use will be described below. The remaining quantities are the correct answers for each of the input fields in the answer section. The format of these will also be described below.

Note that checking of answers is done with an .asp script interpreted by a VBasic interpreter. This has the unfortunate consequence that expressions are evaluated using vbasic's non-standard operator precedence in which unary minus is of higher precedence than exponentiation. For example, -3^2 is interpreted as 9 and not -9. It is recommended that one reduce the likelihood of misinterpreted results either parenthesizing expressions or using numerical answers whenever possible.

The correct answer specification of QM_ questions can be followed by an additional square bracket enclosed semicolon separated list of non-empty description strings. These strings should be case insensitive and contain neither square bracket characters nor single or double quote characters or semicolons. The intention is that these strings will be the names of standard skills being tested by the question. The list of the strings together with the question numbers where they are listed is stored in the homework descriptor. The homework results pages show numbers of problems correctly answered for each description string.

The various answer types correspond to different ways to input or to check answers. In order for a question to be marked correct, all the input answers must be correct.

Header answers can also be used to put in a video link. In this case the first parameter is as before, the second parameter is the name of the video file, and the third parameter is a label. The body of the header will be displayed followed on the right with a pull down menu and a button with the label specified as the third parameter. The pulldown menu allows the user to choose a disk drive or more typically a cd rom drive; in this case the video file is assumed to be located in a subdirectory of the root directory; the name of this subdirectory should be the homework identifier. The default value of the drive letter is So, a typical example would be

AH_[0;myvideo.wmv;Show Video]
For a video about this this or a similar problem:

simply a blank; this causes the file to be retrieved from the WHS video server.    Note:  if the Homework header has a fifth argument of 1, then the video is assumed to be in the top directory of the drive letter chosen (so, if the video bill.wmv is stored on a CD which is inserted into the L drive, then WHS will look in L://video.wmv for the video.  

Example:    

QM_[0;4]

What is 1 + 3?

AC_[5]

SKIP_

Example.

QM_[0;triangle#Triangle#TRIANGLE]

If A, B, and C are noncollinear points, then the union of the three line segments  AB, BC, and CA is called a

AW_[8]

.

SKIP_

Example:

QM_[0;12;15]

If f(x) = x + 3, then complete the table of function values.

AT_[4;3;2;x;f(x);9;;12;]

SKIP_

Example:

QM_[0;x+12]

AH_[0]

If f(x) is a linear function and f(9)=12, and f(12)=15, then f(x) =

AF_[10;x;2;0;1]

SKIP_

Example:

QM_[0;x+2*y]

AH_[0]

If  f is a linear function of two variables, with f(0,0)=1 and f(1,0)=2 then f(x,y) =

AE_[10;2;x;y;2;0;1;0;1]

SKIP_

Example:

QM_[0;x^2+2*x]

AH_[0]

Give an antiderivative for 2*x + 2.  Use calculator notation.  

Answer =

AI_[10;x;2;0;1]

SKIP_

QM_[0;8]

AH_[0]

If f(x) = x + 3, then  the value of f at x = 5 is

AS_[8;2;6;7]

SKIP_

Example:

QM_[0;13]

If f(x) = 2*x + 3, then  the value of f at x = 5 is

AL_[13;8;10;11]

SKIP_

Example:

QM_[0;;2;;;10/5]

If f(x) = x + 3, then  the value of f at x = 5 is

AB_[8;2;6;7;10/5]

SKIP_

QM_[0;2]

Which is the correct definition of parallel lines in space?

AR_[1]

Two lines whose intersection is empty.

AR_[1]

Two coplanar lines  whose intersection is empty.

AR_[1]

Neither of the others

SKIP_

QN_[0;to be hand-graded]

Discuss the universe and give 3 examples.

AX_[3]

SKIP_

QN questions can be hand-graded.  To do so, the instructor goes to Access Records for the class and then clicks on Assignment submission. For the particular assignment, one can click on Display and then click for each student to display submission of the student. There is a Right/Wrong box for each problem to be hand graded.
         

How do we create a homework?   The main tool is the word zipit from the MCtools package.  It has a help page: access it by typeing

>	mctools(zipit);

Now the steps to creating the homework are:

1   If necessary, Get the most recent MCtools section from

Using the export to html with Mathml option in Maple

1.   Log into your WHS account, using Internet Explorer.

2.    Highlight the Teacher Resources  menu item and click on the Authoring Tools  Button.  

3  Go to the Homework Installation table  and press the Browse  button.  Use the window that opens up to locate the homework zipfile hw1whs.zip on your computer (Remember, it is just above the directory hw1whs) The icon for the zipfile has a little zipper on it to distinguish it as a zipfile.

4.   Highlight the zipfile and click it to make it appear in the Open line in the browse window.  

5.  Press the Open Button  in the browse window.  The browse window disappears,  and the path to the zipfile appears in the upload line of the bottom table.  

6.  Press the Install and test homework  button, and wait.   After a few seconds, the zipfile is uploaded, installed, and the homework is retrieved for you to preview.

Once you have a homework installed, you will find that you need to make some changes.   You might want to correct an error in the homework, or add a problem, or delete a problem.  

If you are working on a different computer (but one that has Maple and Internet Explorer),  then you can login to mathclass, go to Teacher Resources , then click on Authoring Tools,  then find your homework in the Homework Testing Table  and click on Download.  If you get the message saying you don't have permission to download, go to the Homework Installation Table  and find your homework on the line with Toggle Downloading, which you should then click.  Now go back and download your homework zipfile and open it up with Winzip or 7zip and click on the source worksheet in there.   Maple will open the worksheet.  Create a folder to put the worksheet in and go through the edit cycle.   Note:  you will need to modify the zipit line to reflect where your worksheet is on the local machine.

Here are some algorithms for common tasks that WHS authors are confronted with.  If you discover something that is missing or wrong, please report it to the authors.  

Sometimes, when you try to install a homework, you cannot get it to install at all. What to do?  

 Go through the steps to install it again.  If you still get the error message, try this:

1 Close Maple  

2  From the Start Button, go to My Computer and locate the homework zipfile.  Delete it. Then go down into the homework directory and double click to go down into it.  Then select the html files in the directory and delete them. (don't delete the source worksheet.)  Also delete the images  folder you see in the directory.

3 . Now start Maple up again and open the source worksheet.

4 . Open the MCtools section, execute it, and close it.

5 . export the worksheet to html

6 . execute the zipit line.

7.  Log into WHS and try to install the homework.  If you still cannot get it to install, email the zipfile to me and I'll try to install it.

If you already have the directory containing the source worksheet on your computer,

1 .  Open up the source worksheet for the homework.

2.   Open the MCtools section at the top,  execute it, and close it.

3.   Make the modifications.

4   Save the worksheet.

5    Export the worksheet to html  

6.   Execute the zipit line.

7 .  Upload the homework zipfile to WHS (Note:  Don't exit Maple here.)

8 .  Install and preview the homework.  

9. If there is some additional change to make, go to the source worksheet which you left open and proceed from step 3 above.

This is the editing cycle, which you will perform several times before the homework is just like you want it.

>

You can download homework zipfiles that you have previously installed on WHS.  Also, you can download a homework that some other author has installed, provided that author gives permission.   

1 F irst open your browser (Internet Explorer) and log into WHS (if you haven't already done so) .    

2 Download   the homework zipfile:    

• Highlight the Teacher resources  Menu item and click the Authoring Tools  button.
• In the top table, select a homework list containing the homework you want  and press the Set Menus  button.
• In the second row of the top table, select the homework you want (suppose it is called  homeworkwhs) to download and press the download button.
• A window pops up. (or you are told the author hasn't given permission for downloading.  In that case, you will need to contact the author and ask him or her for permission to download. If you are the author, then you can go to the Homework Installation table at the bottom of Authoring Tools and toggle the Download  button for that homework.)   Choose to save the file, which is called homeworkwhs.zip.   Save it in a convenient place, say c://temp  

3 Now Unzip the homework file:  

• In the lab, you are using Windows XP, so you can click   My Computer from the Start Button and find the zipfile you saved.  Then rightclick the zipfile and choose the option   Extract All.   The zipfile will be unzipped into the folder homeworkwhs c://temp/homeworkwhs.    If you are at home, and are working with Windows 2000, you can use 7-zip to unzip the zipfile.

Nota Bene:   Usually, all you want when you download a homework zipfile is the Maple worksheet that it contains.  It is the source, and with it you can regenerate the html export.   So, often rather than saving the homework zipfile as described above, you can open it up  (with 7-zip if you are using Windows 2000) and just click on the Maple worksheet in there to open it in Maple.   Then you can save the worksheet

If you have a homework that you want to remove, just do this:

1  From the Homework Installation table at the bottom of the Authoring Tools page, select the homework you want to remove.  

2 .  Click the remove this homework  button.  

3 . You will be asked to verify that you wish to remove the homework.  After checking that you are removing the correct homework, click ok.

A homework list contains a sequence of homeworks.   Every class (see below on how to create a class) must have a homework list.   

1 . Click   Authoring Tools , and go to  the middle of the Homework List Management  table.

2 . Type in a name for the List and then click the Create Homework List  button.   This creates an empty homework list.

3 .  Now at the bottom of the table click the toggle Publication flag  button. This will allow you and others to use your homework list in a class.  

4 .  You can add your homeworks or homeworks from other authors to the list.

 A class in WHS is the vehicle by which you make your homework list available to your students.   

1 .  Login to mathclass
2 .  Go to Teacher Resources  -> Manage Classes  :  A page will appear with   Class management  at the top.

3   In the Create a Class  table, choose a name for your class:  

4 .  Select a school.  If your school is not in the list, you can put the class in any school

5 .  Don't bother with the homepage part.  You can reconfigure the class and install a homepage later.

6.   Select your homework list (or any homework list will do for the moment.).  

7 .  Ignore the box to put a version.  That is a relic from past days.

8.  Now click the Create Class  button.  You have created your class.  Now students can request registration in your class.

1.  Login to mathclass

2.  Go to Teacher Resources  -> Access Records :  A page will appear with 2 columns of buttons.  Click the button in the 2nd row 2nd column that says   Registration and Passwords .   

3.   You will see a button called Approve for Registration .  Highlight the students name and click the button.  The student will appear on class roll after you refresh the browser.

Note:  You can remove a student from your roll at any time.  You can also change a students password at any time, unless the student has teacher standing in WHS.

1.  Login to mathclass

2.  Go to Teacher Resources  -> Access Records :  A page will appear with 2 columns of buttons.

3   To check comments click the button Student Comments.   This collects comments which students make in the feed back sheet.  You also receive email copies, to ensure that you get the comment.

4.  To check performance on homeworks, click the button Assignment Submissions  button (to get collated class results, including comma separated files of individual responses on each homework) or the button Homework Standards Download (to get a comma separated file of all the standards measurements on each student.), or finally and most often the button Summaries by student (to get a summary of each students homework results on each homework and calculate selected averages.)

4.  To check student uploads (not frequently used yet), click the   Student uploads  button.

If you want to provide a document, worksheet, etc to the students in your class, you can use the Class Downloads Button.  Go to Teacher Resources  -> Access Records :   The button in the fourth row second column is labelled Class Downloads.  Click on that:  a browse window opens. Write in a short description of the file for you students to identify it by.  Browse for the file you want to upload to the class and click open with it highlighted. The window disappears and the filename appears above the upload file button. Click on that, and the file is uploaded to the class.  You can verify this by going back to the File Uploads Page and refreshing the browser.  If you make a mistake and upload the wrong file, you can delete the file with the delete button.

Your students (the ones you have approved for registration) can download the file by going to the bottom of the Announcements page.  They will see a Class downloads button. Clicking that will take them to a page listing the files you have uploaded.    Note: If you are a student in your own class, you can use this same place to upload the files.

This provides a secure method of providing files for your students.  It is more convenient and less public than putting a link on your webpage.

 Each class comes with a place to put a webpage.   It provides a place you can put your syllabus and other information relavant to the class.   The students and anyone else with the URL can access it without logging into mathclass, so you can put announcements there as well as on the announcement section of Access Records.

To start:

1. Use Word 2000 to create a web page.  Start with something simple.   

2.  Create a folder, say  c://temp/webpage and save your webpage in this folder.  Name it default.doc   

3.  Also save default.doc as type webpage in the same folder.  This will create a file default.htm and a subfolder of webpage, default_files, which contains any images you have put into the webpage.    

If you want to have hidden sections in your homework that are stored in the homework zipfile, then you will need to supply zipit with your accId, which we are calling your magic number.  Here's how to get yours.  Login to WHS, then bring up the html souce in your browser.  On Internet Explorer 6, the source is accessed via the View Menu.  You'll see the word source about halfway down.  Click that and you will get a page of gobbletygook.  About halfway down the page, you will see  the line  var accId =  ###

WHS homeworks can be constructed with Word2000.   If you are  used to using tagit in MCtools to format the problems, you will need to review  the question and answer format tags  because these have to be inserted by hand in a Word homework.   Also, you will need to zip the files by hand.   
Note:  It is important to save the file as a filtered web page.  This creates an htm file which WHS can process into an xml file.
 
The steps in creating and installing a homework using Word2000 (in WindowsXP, or Windows2000) are:
1   Open a new word document.
2 .  Type in one or two of the problems, beginning with a header tag.  
3 .  From the 'save as' menu, create a directory  with a suitable name (say wordsample) and save the homework as a  filtered web page in that directory, giving the file the same name as you gave the directory.   Later if you want to make changes, you can open this with Word and use it as a source document.
4 .  Now, if you are in XP (as you are in CB 313 or Mathskeller), go to My Computer from the Start Menu, then browse for the directory wordsample that you have saved wordsample in and right-click it.  A window will open up.  Choose Send to Compressed Zip folder.  A zipfile wordsample.zip will appear (it will look like the wordsample directory, except it will have a zipper on it.)
If you are in Windows 2000 or Windows 98, you can use Winzip or 7-Zip. These are programs which you can install that you can use to zip and unzip folders.  7-zip is free to install on your home computer. It can be downloaded from http://www.7-zip.org/download.html  Winzip has an evaluation version which you can download at  http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm
5 .  Log into WHS and install the wordsample.zip zipfile as usual.  
6    Now go back to Word2000 and insert the rest of the problems in your homework, then resave (as a filtered web page), rezip and reinstall, until you have it like you want it.

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