Hi,

michel paul wrote:
> I can't claim it's effective, but so far this is what I'm doing -
[...]

Thanks for sharing your practices integrating Sage and maths education. 
Briefly what I have done this semester with freshmen students in Linear 
Algebra at university was:

   * Use my touch screen laptop and my ultraportable projector (view 
sonic pjd 2121) to convert any "analog" blackboard in a digital one.
   * I make my notes in the touch screen using the digital paint 
software "My Paint". I have tried a lot  of other note taking touch 
screen apps, including the ones that come with the "intelligent boards" 
(I see not much intelligence in the device itself), but the stroke has 
not the organic sense of My Paint and this is important for analog to 
digital transitions. Another nice thing about a software for digital 
paint instead of note keeping is the idea of an infinite canvas instead 
of a page as a place for writing and drawing. This is where most of my 
class "takes place". When we need to made some calculations we use 
TeXmacs + Sage interface, because of its nice output and fluid (math) 
writing.
   * We put the knowledge management system (KMS) cyn.in to support and 
extend the social part of the learning experience so I put my class 
notes and CAS references there. The students publish also there solved 
exercises that use LyX + Sagenb.org or TeXmacs + Sage to calculate but 
more importantly argument about calculations using the Polya's 
heuristics. Is nice to have a KMS instead of a Learning Management 
System (LMS) in this part, because unfortunately LMS think about 
learning as it happen on school only, so we can have more emergence.

For next semester we're trying to extend that possibility inside "the 
institution" in several ways:

   * Installing the cyn.in software _also_ inside the university's 
severs (at this moment it is in a local free software community server).
   * Prototyping low cost touch boards with Wii controls, so we can have 
them everywhere.
   * Integrating MathRider with Source Python Distribution (Sage Small) 
so we can run it everywhere with low connectivity or computational 
resources and grow/bridge from MathRider to Sage.

> My dream is to create a fusion math/CS course.  I came an inch close 
> to having it happen for this year - but the course wasn't really 
> supported by my dept chair and was never officially put into the 
> schedule, so kids couldn't sign up for it.  However, as it turns out, 
> there actually was more interest on the part of the students than the 
> administration wanted to admit, and I'm continuing to push for it.  
> Eventually it HAS to happen.
>
> Ultimately I want to create a Computational Analysis course using the 
> Litvin text Math for the Digital Age 
> <http://www.skylit.com/mathandpython.html>.  I think it would be a 
> wonderful book.  We would begin there, and whatever topics in the 
> Analysis curriculum that were not addressed in that book we would 
> bring in as needed.
>
> I'm very much interested in getting something like this to happen, and 
> I'd like to know if anyone is doing something like that anywhere.

You should see the MathRider project which is also trying to integrate 
programming a math education and have a lot of emphasize on education 
and education research. They are writing excellent free books on this 
juncture.

Cheers,

Offray

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