William et al., This is a great opportunity for Sage; I've been trying to advocate for one locally as well. Some somewhat random thoughts organized around the idea of showing how Sage is good from the start follow.
I think that at these conferences people will also largely be concerned with how much time it will take to get involved with something like this - both for them and for their students. So talking some about what a sysadmin might have to do to get a local one set up, or how likely it is that sagenb.org will be a good option (assuming these are both positive!) would be very helpful; the more that teachers with a big teaching load - and their students - can get right down to using Sage, the better. Additionally, you may want to emphasize that Sage can, as appropriate, grow with the student (one of its big selling points for me). Examples from VERY basic linear algebra i.e. just solving a 3x3 linear system to showing how it could be used in an algebra or graph theory course would be helpful, as then it is a long-term investment for the department (as opposed to a pet project no one will help with). Don't just try to wow them - we know that Mma and Maple can wow us, but how easy is it to use them for practical concerns (like zooming 2-d graphs to show a derivative at a point - how much work is that in Sage)? Probably downplay the Python for lower level things, for the same reason; even many of our more talented students resist using programming structures, even loops, and in a service course this could be a deal-breaker. Not that you have to convince them to use Sage instead of Excel in a business math course, but the whole drag-down concept in a spreadsheet, or static cell references, is often a big stumbling block even there, so this is at least one level of course you should be able to convince the attendees that Sage can be effective at. Finally, I think it is key that everyone attending, if it's in a lab, actually try not just to make a new account, but also to try to actually upload a sample worksheet to their account so that they see how it works. That gives them an idea right away of what the student experience will be; my experience has been that I have often underestimated how long it takes new users to pick up things that are second nature to me now, like looking for the "Upload" button or that it is a good idea to save your work! I don't think you can do all the things suggested in this thread in one workshop, of course. If you can convince them that the learning curve is not too high and that the students can pick things up without too many office hour questions about Sage (as opposed to the math), I think you can look forward to many adopting schools in Washington State, which will lead to more workshops run by many Sage early adopters to address more such issues. Good luck! If we're lucky there will be many more such requests for workshops after the JMM as well. - kcrisman --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-edu" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-edu?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
