WebMath: New Mathwright Library and Cafe

[James White]

Dear colleagues,

	Please accept our invitation to visit and celebrate the gala opening
of the New Mathwright Library and Cafe.  The URL is
http://www.mathwright.com.  Since the Mathwright Library appeared on the web
in early 1995, we enjoy the dubious distinction of being one of the first
mathematics digital libraries.  And we quickly became something of an
"historical monument" or an antique in light of our early arrival to the
internet.  The New Library and Cafe, however,  is a state-of-the-art virtual
place that puts the best features of the new web technologies at the
disposal of our readers.
	In fact, the paradigm that we implement is simple, but may be
unfamiliar.  Our readers come to the Library and 'register' by downloading
the Mathwright Library Player to their own machines.  This Player is a
full-featured computer algebra and graphics environment that supports and
operates the WorkBooks on their machines. Then they browse the Stacks (70
rooms of WorkBooks)  in a variety of ways to find interactive WorkBooks that
they would like to explore.  They download these WorkBooks to their own
machines, each building her "own" Mathwright Library that she can read at
her leisure, whether on the web or not.  This gives the readers time to
explore in directions they choose, and to indulge their free-form and
gratuitous curiosity, and to 'play' with new ideas.  According to Piaget,
'play' is the most powerful source of new and enduring knowledge.
	The WorkBooks themselves range in size from 1 to 38 pages (averaging
about 6 pages) and they have the look and feel of web pages -- web pages
with a degree in mathematics. So they have no problem calculating,
simplifying, and displaying mathematical expressions in a form that students
can understand, or doing interactive (not canned) sprite animations, 3D
graphics, and simulations while solving differential equations in the
background in real-time. And they do exact arithmetic and algebra when that
is critical to the story.  In fact, many of our WorkBooks are written as
stories.  
	From its inception,  the Library has distinguished itself in several
ways from the mathematics resources generally available on the web. The
Library has always been a 'constructivist' site in the Piagetian sense,
built on the premise that students understand the answers to the questions
they themselves ask, better than they understand the answers to the
questions that we, or textbooks, ask (then answer) for them.  Our Library
WorkBooks are designed to elicit questions from reader, and then to provide
answers to their questions.  And they are all written by mathematics
teachers themselves (at the secondary and undergraduate level), rather than
by software engineers or undergraduate computer science students.
(Actually, a few were designed and written by my own mathematics students).
	The Library is also a 'reform' site in the Tulane sense.  Many of
our WorkBooks and course sequences are designed to encourage independent and
collaborative thinking, and to discourage formulaic thinking or rote
memorization. 
 
	Rather than go on, I'll stop haranguing you. I invite you to stop
by, and see what we're up to.

James E. White, Ph.D.
"The Heart has its reasons that Reason can never know"
- Pascal's motto

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