Open Source Experience on Math Courses

Transcription

1 Department of Mathematical Sciences, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan 政治大學應用數學系 July 17, Libre Software Meeting

2 Introduction We are going to share our experience on a computer training program at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, National Chengchi University ( 政治大學應用數學系 ), Taiwan. The nick name of the project is the Penguin Project. Our goal is to train students to use computer deal with math and share math ideas with other people. We will explain how we achieve our goal by using open source software.

3 Apologies I will not distinguish free software from open source software. I am not a free software addict.

4 Why I am here, then? We choose free software because it works, not just because it s free! I think it is important to use software properly and legally, especially in school. I won t use any software that my students cannot bring home legally.

5 About Chengchi Unviersity Natation Chengchi University is one of top universities in Taiwan. We have the largest number of foreign students in Taiwan. In case you come here, please remember that we have the Penguin Project at the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

6 Why Penguin Project? After graduation, our students go various directions. Many go to graduate school in mathematics, business, computer science, operations research, economics, etc. Some go directly into industry, almost in every kind of jobs. Being a math teacher used to be a popular career choice, but it is not as easy to become a math teacher as before. We believe with strong math background, our students can do everything, but they need some training to show their abilities. Master in Computer is a good approach...

7 What We Want to have in Penguin Project? We do not want to repeat courses in computer sciences. We want our students have the abilities to use their math knowledge or to show their ideas with the help of computer.... It s easy to say but hard to do.

8 Maxima in Linear Algebra Course Our first try is to use a math program, Maxima, that can do symbolic computations. ( We chose a symbolic math program because it does things like we teach! For instance, it can tell you an antiderivative of x 3 is 1 4 x 4, = 5 6 (not ), the solutions to x 2 = 2 are 2, 2 (not 1.414, 1.414), and so on.

9 A Stupid Manual is Important! I write a tutorial Maxima in Linear Algebra to help students do linear algebra problems by using Maxima. I did feel it s not necessary at beginning, but it turned out to help many students, even many people want to learn Maxima program. Computer geeks tends to think everything can be done by read the original manual, or search from google... It motivate me to have Penguin Project focusing on writing good manual or tutorials.

10 Computer in Math Education In our department, we have a master s program for K-12 Math teachers. At, first, I did teach some property software. For example, I taught the Geometer s Sketch Pad once. As time goes by, I found that it is important to let people, especially educators know how to use computer software properly. I still do not insist a teacher should only teach free software, but at least should respect the right for students to choose different programs/opeating systems. Also, a teacher should teach programs that students can legally use at home for free or with reasonable prices.

11 Arguments Many people in Taiwan would say, The Windows is the most popular operating systems, so there is no reason to use other operating systems. My Answer: If this world can only allow no.1 (most popular, most profitable,...), I won t like to live in that kind of world. We should allow everyone to use computer in their own way. If my students would like to use Windows instead of Linux, Mathematica instead of Maxima, Word instead of LaTeX/Open Office, etc., that is fine as long as that is there choice, not because that is the only thing they are allowed to use.

12 The Penguin Project Last summer, with help from OSSF, we start a summer Linux program. institution-logo

13 Course We also start a one-year course. The software we choose are as the following. Computer Language Python Math Program Maxima, Gnuplot, SAGE Publishing System L A TEX, CJK-L A TEX Web Development HTML, CSS, jsmath, Apache, phpbb, Drupal, Django Image Gimp, Blender 3D

14 Computer Language: Python We need one computer language that is easy, but powerful and popular enough. It is easy, so we can easily do math experiments on computer. It is powerful, so we won t need to change computer language for some situations. It is popular enough, so we are not the only ones in the world who use this language.

15 Publishing System: L A TEX

16 L A TEX We can use it to get high quality documents: research papers, exams, manuals, anything! The source files are pure text files, so it is easy to transfer and modify. You get exactly the same outputs on different platforms. You can also use L A TEX to generate slides for presentations. For example, you can use the Beamer package (like this one). You can use LaTeX2html or jsmath to present math on the web.

17 SAGE SAGE gets its name from Software for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation. You can use many math programs at one time, include Maxima, Octave, Singular, Axiom, GAP, GP/PARI, Macaulay2, even property software like Mathematica, Maple, Magma, Matlab, and MuPAD. Use Python as base programming language. You don t need to learn different programming language for each single math program. You can output the results as L A TEX commands.

18 Put Math Online: jsmath Use L A TEX to show math online. You can present math ideas on the web, you can do online math quizzes, you can do web math applications (actually, SAGE does that). It is a JavaScript implementation, so it does not require any special setup on the client side.

19 Everything is related!

20 Keep this project alive! Organize the group as a student club. Motivate students with exciting projects. Training students become free software instructors.

21 Merci!