Transmath Newsletter no. 1 -------------------------- Dear All, Thank you all for showing interest in Transmath. In this first newsletter, I will give you a brief description of what Transmath is, how you can get hold of it, an up to date progress report and plans for the near future. History of Transmath -------------------- The Transmath group was established in December 1992 as part of the Transitional Mathematics Project (TMP), funded by the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) under its Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP). TMP consists of a two-site consortium, involving the Mathematics departments at Imperial College, London and the University of Leeds. Transmath is the courseware being developed at Leeds. What is Transmath ----------------- Transmath is a computer-based learning package designed to help students entering into numerate disciplines overcome the increasingly difficult transition, from pre-University mathematics, to that encountered at 1st year undergraduate level. It consists of a set of modules, each one containing material predominantly from A-level mathematics, although more advanced material has been included. The material in Transmath is presented in a friendly and informal manner, using text (hypertext), graphics, animation and feedback to create an interactive medium which students can go through at their own pace in their own time. Besides the friendliness and ease of use, the main strengths of Transmath lay in its animated examples and exercises randomly generated at runtime. The examples employ animation to bring to life mathematical concepts or the mechanics of solving an equation. The exercises generate questions at runtime, so no two students will get the same question. The exercises give detailed feedback on any mistakes and can break a question down and take the student through step-by-step. Progress Report --------------- A suite of 6 modules on Calculus are complete and currently being used by several departments at Leeds University, Strathclyde University and Sheffield Hallam University. A formal evaluation of our courseware (and also that of our sister project at Imperial College) is under way, conducted by a reader from the University of London Institute of Education. An anonymous ftp server has also been set up to distribute our material (see below). If, for any reason, you cannot get hold of our material by ftp, please contact us (address below). **** Remember to change to binary mode before downloading the files.**** In the near future ------------------ An algebra module is well under way and a matrices module is nearing completion. They will probably be ready after the New Year. I am also working on our WWW page. This will also be ready soon. System Requirements ------------------- Hardware: We recommend using a 486 DX33 or better with 8 Mb RAM and at least 10Mb disk space. You can get away with less if you are not using Mathematica. Software: You must have MS Windows 3.1 or better. You do not need Mathematica to run Transmath but you do need it to access many of the exercises. FTP --- All the completed transmath modules are available via anonymous ftp at caliban.leeds.ac.uk (ip address 129.11.36.19) A smaller demo version is also available by ftp to ccb14.bham.ac.uk (ip address 147.188.240.60) in the directory /ctimath/tltp/transmat/ Publications ------------ "A Mathematica-based CAL matrix-theory tutor for scientists and engineers" by M.A.Kelmanson, S.B.Maunders and S.Y.Cheng in the Association for Learning Technology Journal (ALT-J) Volume 1 No. 2 (1993). "TLTP Project - TRANSMATH at Leeds" by Amanda Kelly, Simon Maunder and Sui Cheng in the CTICMS's Maths and Stats newsletter. That's all for this month. If you have any queries, please contact us at the address below. Sui Cheng --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Sui Cheng e-mail: sui@amsta.leeds.ac.uk Dr. Amanda Kelly e-mail: a.d.kelly@leeds.ac.uk Dr. Simon Maunder e-mail: simon@amsta.leeds.ac.uk Department of Applied Maths University of Leeds tel: (+44) 113 233 5174 Leeds LS2 9JT fax: (+44) 113 242 9925 U.K. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------