WebMath: New Mathwright Library and Cafe

[Paul Topping]

Interesting, but your installer needs much work:

- It wants to install stuff directly at the root of my hard drive. Instead
it should be in Program Files.

- It created multiple "Mathwright Library" entries in my Start menu.

I've seen Java-based "mathlets" that seem to do pretty much the same job
with much less installing and mucking around. Why all the extra machinery?

Paul
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: 	James White [mailto:mathwrig at gte.net] 
> Sent:	Thursday, February 01, 2001 1:25 PM
> To:	webmath at camel.math.ca
> Subject:	WebMath: New Mathwright Library and Cafe
> 
> 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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