Speakers: Peter Andrews, Patrick Coulton and Marshall Lassak
Old Main 2231
Over the centuries, tools such as slide rules, calculators, computer algebra systems and dynamic geometry software have provided new ways for us to make computations or view mathematical results. They have also forced us, at times, to think long and hard about how and what we teach. While it can address much more than computational or symbolic mathematics, Wolfram Alpha is another such tool. This is a web based technical answer/search engine accessible to everyone (and that includes students!) with an internet connection. Often the results from Alpha are superior to graphing calculators or computer algebra systems. Alpha is a computer algebra/calculus/statistics system and solves a variety of mathematical problems. It is relatively easy to use and has very good online help. We will demonstrate some of Alpha’s capabilities and hope to provoke a discussion of its usefulness and/or pitfalls for how our students might do their homework, how they can best learn mathematics, and how we might need to rethink our teaching and testing.
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