News from the METRIC Project- May 1997 -------------------------------------- [For previous newsletters, see ftp://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/pub/docs/newsletters/ To unsubscribe from these mailings, contact p.kent@ic.ac.uk . ] SYMPOSIUM IN TECHNOLOGY FOR MATHEMATICAL LEARNING: This one-day event will be held on Wednesday 25th June at Imperial College. Recent years have seen the advent of a bewildering variety of software applications, tutorial packages and hand-held computer technology, all aimed at changing the way we teach and learn technical subjects in universities. But technology on its own doesn't change anything. How should we be using these innovations? Should we be using them at all? What are the opportunities? Are there any dangers? This symposium, which we hope will be the first in a series to be held annually, aims to provide a forum for examining these issues. The focus will be on mathematics and on the mathematical components of science and engineering. There will be nominal registration fee of 15 pounds (no fee for Imperial College participants). List of speakers: * Neil Challis, Sheffield Hallam University * Ian Stevenson, Institute of Education, London * The METRIC Project, Imperial College * David Klug and Richard Templer, Imperial College * Celia Hoyles, Institute of Education, London More details at http://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/symposium/ . Places are limited, and allocation will be on a first-come, first-served basis. To register, send the following form to Phil Ramsden at p.ramsden@ic.ac.uk . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | |Please register me for the First Annual One-day Symposium in Technology | |for Mathematical Learning. | | | |Name: | | | |Department: | | | |Institution: | | | |Address: | | | | | |Email: | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "EXPERIMENTS IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS" AND MATHEMATICA VERSION 3.0: The Mathematica packages that accompany the book "Experiments in Undergraduate Mathematics" are now available in versions for Mathematica 3.0. To access them, go to http://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/packages/book/ . There is a US mirror site for the packages at the Math Archives: ftp://archives.math.utk.edu/software/multi-platform/trans_math_proj/pub/packages/book/ (Floppy disks are available on special request. We make a charge of 15 pounds sterling for this service---cheques payable to "Imperial College" and drawn on a British bank only.) MICROWORLDS: Our current design work is concerned with the design of "mathematical microworlds" based on Mathematica. For descriptions of this work, see our recent articles at: http://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/articles/#1997 As prototypes are completed, we will be offering them for you to try out. Your comments will be appreciated. Mathematica code and documents (in Word and RTF formats) will be available at: http://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/worlds/ The first prototype is on "Ordinary Differential Equations". Note that I will be running a minicourse on these microworlds at the ICTCM-10 conference in Chicago in November (http://www.aw.com/he/ictcm/). OUR ADDRESSES ------------- Margaret James, Phillip Kent and Phil Ramsden, The METRIC Project, Mathematics Department, Imperial College, London SW7 2BZ. Tel: +44 (0)171 594 8503, Fax: +44 (0)171 594 8517. E-mail: metric-proj@ic.ac.uk . World-Wide-Web at URL http://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/ . Gopher and FTP to: metric.ma.ic.ac.uk (155.198.192.26). Previous newletters are stored at: ftp://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/pub/docs/newsletters/ . Please send *technical* questions about WWW/gopher/ftp and our software direct to p.kent@ic.ac.uk .