Session Schedule: MAA PREP Workshop

Summer 2011

Each day is a total of four hours online, broken into two 2-hour sessions. Please get set up in Elluminate a few minutes before the start time, paying special attention to the guidelines (especially about your session name and headphones). We will post links to recordings of each session to the course email list shortly after the conclusion of the session.

• Session I: 8-10 Pacific, 11-1 Eastern
• Session II: Noon-2 Pacific, 3-5 Eastern

Tuesday, May 24

Our goal on the first day is to get everybody comfortable enough in the notebook interface that they can begin to productively explore their own interests in Sage independently. So we will concentrate on basic use and the various ways to get help and learn more.

Questions are encouraged! With that in mind, note that we have ample time for addressing questions that come up during the presentations. You should feel free to message in Elluminate anything that comes to mind, and we'll be sure to address as many as possible during the actual session.

Session I - Getting Started

• Introductions: Organizers and Participants (Karl-Dieter, 30 min)
• Review (and expand on) "PREP Intro Tutorial" worksheet (Karl-Dieter, 45 min)
  • Evaluating commands
  • Symbolic functions
  • Finding Help and Documentation through the notebook
  • Annotating your Worksheets
• Short Break
• Questions (Jason, 20 min)
• Technology in the Classroom roundtable (Jason, 20 min)
  • How have you used math software in the classroom?
  • What is your goal in using math software in class?
  • How much should students interact with the software? (Labs? In-class demonstrations? Homework? Tests?)
  • How do you grade technology assignments?
  • How do you adjust your teaching style when students are expected to use math software?

  • Notes from the discussion

Session II - Sage Community

• Welcome Back (Jason, 5 min)
• Resources (Jason, 25 min)

  • ask.sagemath.org

  • Help in the notebook
  • Google Groups

    • sage-support

    • sage-edu

    • sage-edu

  • MAA list (versus Google Groups)

  • Sage wiki (Interacts, Quickrefs)

    • Sage Quick Reference (Wiki)

    • Sage Interacts (Wiki)

  • www.sagemath.org

    • Reference Material

    • Sage Reference (standalone)

    • Sage Tutorial (standalone)

    • Interact Construction Documentation

  • www.sagenb.org (published worksheets)

  • Questions
• Questions (Jason, 10 min)
• Short Break
• Review "Sage Tutorial for Symbolics and Plotting" (Karl-Dieter, 40 min)
  • Symbolic Expressions
  • Basics of Two-Dimensional Plotting
  • Basics of Three-Dimensional Plotting
• Questions (Karl-Dieter, 15 min)
• Homework (Karl-Dieter, 10 min)
  • Preparation for next sessions
  • Pre-Workshop Survey for MAA?
• Announcements (Jason, 5 min)
  • Office Hours
  • June Sessions

There will likely also be some group discussion/sharing time on effective ideas for use of computer software, especially via the Internet.

Session Links

• John Perry's Mathematical Computing Course

• Beezer's TeX Resources (bottom half of "Links")

• William Stein's Sage/Mathematical History

• Sage's Python to C translator

• Setting up a Sage server

• R Studio (not Sage, but an R interface)

• SageTeX

• tex2sws for making LaTeX become Sage Worksheets

• sws2tex for making nicely typeset output from Sage Worksheets

• Magma and Sage interface

• Sage mode in Emacs

• Sage on Windows

• The worksheet shared with everybody

Office Hours

Please connect as usual in Elluminate, and give the organizer a minute or two to recognize you if there is nobody else around, or they are busy with someone else. ("Raising your hand" should provide an audible alert on the organizer's end.) See the guide for information on sharing your worksheet out via Elluminate. This might be a useful way for us to help you with problems.

And of course feel free to ask any questions on the MAA list for the workshop, or support question on [email protected]

Office Hours are TBA, but the format will look like this.

• Between introductory session and intensive sessions

Homework

• For Tuesday, June 7th
  • TBA, probably including trying the calculus tutorial