On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 5:22 PM, William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Ted Kosan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On the support list, a high school teacher (Jacob) wrote: > > > > > That would be a huge value to me. As a high school teacher, the > > > features of GeoGebra almost completely fill the void of "things I wish > > > sage could do". The notebook widgets for Mathematica style > > > demonstrations would fill quite a bit of the same void, but GeoGebra > > > is already robust and has a ton of functionality. > > > > > > I love sage, but the high school definition of "exploration" generally > > > means grabbing things and moving them around and seeing what happens. > > > That is hard to accomplish in sage and it is what interactive geometry > > > software like GeoGebra was designed to do. Sage is great for my > > > calculus and statistics classes, but it falls short in Precalculus and > > > Geometry where a much more tactile grab approach works well. If I > > > could send data freely back and forth between the two I could create > > > much more powerful concept demonstrations across the board in my > > > class. > > > > > > The fact that GeoGebra can be driven by text commands and embedded as > > > a java applet makes interfacing it with a system like sage seem > > > possible. I am very excited about this possibility because for me it > > > would "complete" sage's functionality. > > > > Jason Grout did some research on GeoGebra and found these examples: > > > > >1. Approximating an integral with sums: > > http://www.geogebra.org/en/examples/integral/loweruppersum.html > > > > > >2. Trying to intercept an object in 3d by only adjusting direction, > > >altitude, and velocity of a projectile: > > > http://www.dean.usma.edu/math/people/Peterson/geogebra/parametric3d-ballistic.html > > >I think this helps students realize how difficult the problem is to > > do by guessing and checking! > > > > > >Lots more english examples are at > > http://www.geogebra.org/en/wiki/index.php/English > > > > > > My question is, do the core Sage developers think that adding GeoGebra > > to Sage is a good idea or a bad idea? > > I think there is a brewing tension between education and > research amongst developers involved with the Sage project. > More on that in a moment. > > I cannot speak for all the core Sage developers, but I think I have some > idea what some of them think and care about. My impression > is that many of them are involved in Sage because they want to create > software that they can use for attacking cutting edge research > problems in their research area. This is true of me: I started > Sage -- original called "Software for Arithmetic > Geometry Experimentation" -- to have a very powerful open software > environment for computing with modular forms, abelian varieties, > elliptic curves, and L-functions. > > I am quite happy that Sage has become > much more general, addressing a huge range of mathematics, since > this expands the range of good developers and also increasing the > range of tools math researchers can bring to bare on attacking > a problem results in better research. For example, the solutions > to many problems in number theory involve > an incredible range of techniques in different areas of mathematics. > I'm fairly certain that many of the people who have put in insane > hours during the last few years making Sage what is it now (e.g., > Mike Hansen, David Roed, Robert Bradshaw, David Harvey, Robert > Miller, Emily Kirkman, Martin Albrecht, Michael Abshoff, > etc.) have a similar perspective. > > On the other hand, I teach high school students for a while every > summer (in SIMUW), as do other people like David Roe, and > of course I teach undergraduate classes... This is why I put > so much effort into co-authoring things like > the Sage notebook, which exist mainly to make the functionality of > Sage more accessible to a wider range of people. > > So, I think there is a brewing tension between education and > research amongst developers involved with the Sage project > (and in my case in my own mind). Some observations: > > 1. The research part of the Sage project is thriving > and getting sufficient funding independent of any > connection with educational applications of Sage. > It very very healthy right now. > > 2. There is a lot of potential benefit to education > in having a tool like Sage, since Mathematica is > quite expensive, closed, etc. It's good for humanity > for Sage to be genuinely useful in an educational > context. > > 3. People working on Sage for research have > very limited time, and it can be frustrating being > regularly asked to do things by the education > community that not only have nothing to do with > research, but are even sometimes at odds with it. > > 4. It is vitally important for the Sage project to be both > well organized and have a clear sense of direction, > purpose and goals. > > It might be a good idea if the people > who are really interested in Sage being a great > tool for *education*, would consider doing the > following: > > (a) setting up a mailing list called > sage-edu > for development discussions related to > Sage in education. I realize that we > just got rid of sage-newbie, but that was for > a different reason -- because people were posting > sage-support questions there and not getting > responses.
Done: http://groups.google.com/group/sage-edu Anyone who wants to share moderation duties, please let me know. > > (b) Gather together > the best education-related tools in some sort > of organized package. This could start with > Geogebra. I don't know. The key > thing is that there is no expectation at all that > the people into Sage mainly for research do > much of anything related to this project. I hope > one outcome of this project would be an spkg > that when installed would make available lots > of cool extra stuff, and of course I would be very > supportive about server space, posting of spkg's > etc. And when this gets some momentum and > quality behind it this spkg would be included > standard in Sage. > > Basically I'm suggesting that everyone interested > in making Sage the ultimate educational tool > get organized, figure out who really wants to put > in an insane amount of effort on this sort of thing, > and put together a bunch of cool tools. Stop thinking > you have to convince a bunch of us research-focused > people to do the work or that your ideas are good -- you > don't -- your ideas are good; it's just that if we put a lot > of time into them we won't have time for our research. > > Make an spkg that will be trivial to install into > Sage and extend its functionality. There is > definitely sufficient interest in something like this > for education, there is great potential for funding, > and potential for having a major positive impact on > society. Thus I think people will emerge who will > want to take up this challenge. I just thing it's better > if it can happen for a while unconstrained by the > rules or prejudices of the "Sage Research" side > of this project. > > In summary, please put a huge amount of effort into > getting organized and putting together something polished > and great, so I can later effortless assimilate it :-). > > -- William > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
