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Re: Student version in high schools

  • To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
  • Subject: [mg811] Re: Student version in high schools
  • From: trebla at io.org (Albert Y.C. Lai)
  • Date: Mon, 24 Apr 1995 01:06:04 -0400
  • Organization: Internex Online, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (416 363 3783)

In article <3md0ag$830 at news0.cybernetics.net>,
mhalls at cc.weber.edu (Michael Halls) wrote:
>     My question is what did I miss?  What things did everyone else do in high
> school that I didn't do?  Or was everyone else using a better (less crippled)
> program?  I guess my question is what is it even used for in high schools
> anyway?

To put it very arrogantly, I would guess that the highschool
mathematics curriculum is not sophisticated enough to demand something
as powerful as Mathematica.  (Like, they only deal with
single-variable functions.)  On the other hand highschool students 
would certainly need a graphing calculator, since these days they 
need one to graph y=x.  (Some would go as far as to graph y=1 with a 
graphing calculator; the rest would wonder how to graph x=1 with a 
graphing calculator.)

I am in university and Mathematica helps me in a wide range of work, 
from the highly continuous things (calculus, differential equations, 
visualizing real and complex functions) to highly discrete things 
(number theory, factorization).  The programming languauge, which is 
like C, Lisp, and Prolog at the same time, is particularly useful and 
natural.

For highschools, I think the best people to use Mathematica are the 
teachers.  They can set up demostrations and nice graphics on 
Mathematica for students to see.  The students themselves don't really
need to use it.

--
Albert Y.C. Lai                     trebla at io.org
00Laiyuc at wave.scar.utoronto.ca      Lai at titania.scar.utoronto.ca
http://www.io.org/~trebla/


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