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Tentative Syllabus, Spring Quarter 1998

This is a tentative syllabus for the Technology in the Geometry Classroom course.

Here is a list of the homepages of students taking the course in spring '98. The instructors this quarter are John McDonald , and Hinke Osinga .

Office hours: by appointment. Questions sent to instructors5337@geom.umn.edu will be answered within one school day of their receipt.

This class will cover a wide range of topics generally centered around the integration of various types of technology and multimedia into the Geometry curriculum. We will spend a great deal of time discussing web site design, and methods for making Geometry web sites come alive with interactive and dynamic Geometry. We will consider several classical geometric problems and discuss the best ways to present such material in light of the availability of computer software and the web. We will also spend a significant amount of time exploring the possibilities of incorporating new and innovative topics into the Geometry curriculum. In particular, near the end of this course, we will cover some simple one dimensional dynamical systems, and symmetry.

One of the factors which forces this class to be flexibly designed is that computers and the Web are evolving technologies. It is our intention that we explore, as a group, the appropriateness of these technologies for the classroom, student exploratory labs, and student homework assignments. If you have any ideas for avenues of exploration which we have not included here, please come and suggest them to either John or Hinke.

For those of you who are in-service teachers, I encourage you to think critically about your current curriculum. Some materials lend themselves to technological presentations, while others do not. Together, I hope that we can come to some kind of consensus on what types of material would benefit from such presentation, especially in regards to dynamic demonstrations and interactive exploratory labs.

Class 1 (April 6)

Technical Information How to use Netscape. Creating a simple Web document. How to read and send email.
Lab Introduction to the World-Wide Web
Homework 1 due April 13

Things you need to know about Copyright.

Introduction to the Web: 1 (and send email to math5337@geom.umn.edu describing the sites you found), 2 (and start thinking about a final project).
Bring a picture to be scanned in next week for your homepage.
Introductory Questions for The Geometer's Sketchpad: 1 and 9.
Choose two or three classmates you would like to be grouped with.

Class 2 (April 13)

Technical Information How to post a web page; more about using Geometer's Sketchpad.
Lab Monge's Theorem
Homework 2 (Turn in by publishing it on your webpage.)

Question 3 from the Geometer's Sketchpad homework.
Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4 from the assigment about Monge's Theorem.
Look at the introductory information about writing a web page and in particular follow the link and read the HTML tutorial from the Geometry Forum.

Class 3 (April 20)

Lab Monge's Theorem
Homework 3 (Turn in by publishing it on your webpage.)

Not assigned yet.

Class 4 (April 27)

Technical Information Question and answer session on Monge's Theorem homework. Adding Sketchpad sketches and pictures to a Web page.
Things you need to know about Copyright.
Lab Peaucellier's Linkage
Homework 4

Not assigned yet

Class 5 (May 4)

Turn in Final Project Proposals

Lab Peaucellier's Linkage
Homework 5

Not assigned yet

Class 6 (May 11)

Turn in Final Project Outline

Technical Information How to use the dynamical systems software.
Lab One-Dimensional Dynamical Systems Lab
Homework 6 due May 18 (first part) and May 25.

All questions from the Warm up questions of the One-Dimensional Dynamical Systems Lab.
The following questions of the Questions on One-Dimensional Dynamical Systems may be turned in on paper. Try to get at least the first 6 done for May 18, and the rest a week later, May 25.
- Questions 1, 2 and 3 from Part 2
- Questions 4, 5 and 6 from Part 3
- Questions 11, 13, 16, 18 and 19 from Part 4
- Questions 20, 21, 23, 24 and 26 from Part 5
- Questions 27 and 29 from the General Questions

Class 7 (May 18)

Technical Information Question and answer session on dynamical systems.
Lab One-Dimensional Dynamical Systems Lab
Video
Homework 7 (to be turned in as a web page)

Not assigned yet

Class 8 (May 25)

Turn in Final Project Rough Draft

Technical Information Kaleidotile, Java, the Applications menu.
Lab Introduction to Symmetries
Video The Platonic Solids
Homework 8 Not assigned yet

Class 9 (June 1)

Technical Information Kali, Gif converter
Lab Wallpaper Patterns
Homework 9 Not assigned yet

Class 10 (June 8)

Presentation of Final Projects

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