I am of the opinion that students need to learn what a calculator is doing in order to use it properly. Here’s an example – calculating with decimals can be somewhat tedious and there certainly is a point of diminishing returns with regard to the length of problem sets assigned for practicing concepts. But, if [...]
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Calculators
Posted in Math Education, Technology on October 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Mathematics of Data Analysis
Posted in Applications, Technology on November 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There was an interesting article in this weekend’s New York Times about the SAS Institute, a software company in North Carolina. The company was started in 1976 by four former professors who worked in the agricultural statistics department at North Carolina State University. The business software they design is made to analyze and interpret massive [...]
The Future of the Computer Interface
Posted in Technology on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I wrote this summer about the CrunchPad, a type of low cost web tablet or internet reader. There are more of these coming available, like the Kindle DX, among others. This article in Slate talks about the possible demise of stand alone music players and single function hardware (like the Kindle) in general. What I [...]
CrunchPad
Posted in Technology on July 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have been wondering for about a year now if someone would come out with an “internet reader.” This would combine the portability of a mobile phone (iPhone, etc.) with a good enough sized screen to make reading and video real possibilities. Wait no more…the CrunchPad is here. Here is some info from the New [...]
Light Posting
Posted in Applications, Digital Security, Technology on June 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m on vacation until September, and my work priority this summer is to prepare to team-teach a class on Technology & Privacy for the Winter 2010 quarter. If you’re interested in this topic and haven’t read Privacy On the Line by Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau and The Eavesdroppers by Samuel Dash, they are both [...]
The Beauty of the Complex Plane
Posted in Complex Analysis, Technology on June 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This from the Wikipedia entry on Complex Analysis and it’s related to what I was writing about in the last post. I’ll talk about some of the details later, for now it’s just pretty!
Mathematics and Computer Graphics
Posted in Applications, Technology on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I read a book this weekend called “What the Dormouse Said.” It tells the story of the birth of the computer industry in Silicon Valley during the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the people involved were connected in some way with Stanford University because of all the computer research being done there. Much of this [...]
Wolfram Alpha is up and running
Posted in Math Education, Technology on May 18, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Wolfram Alpha is up and running! Here is some discussion about the site. And here. I was also reading a New York Times article today about the web sites Course Hero and Cramster. The future of education will, I believe, move in a direction that makes use of these tools, but still challenges students to [...]
Wolfram Alpha
Posted in Technology on March 17, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I don’t know much about Wolfram Alpha except that its developer Stephen Wolfram is well known in the mathematical community as a ground breaking thinker. His business is based on the Mathematica software package and he has written a book called A New Kind of Science about a way of approaching science that is closely [...]
