Number 2, June 1997.

Reports on Conferences, Workshops and New Associations

MaTILDA'97: Mathematical Tools in Interactive Learning, a Digital Approach

Tudor Jebelean, RISC-Linz, Austria.
Email: Tudor.Jebelean@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
and
Thierry Van Effelterre, RIACA, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: vaneff@can.nl

Recent developments in information and computation technology (multimedia, World-Wide-Web, computer algebra systems) give now the means for widely available interactive material for education. The participants discussed various means to `do mathematics' within the interactive learning systems, i.e. symbolic and numerical computing, visualizing and manipulating geometrical objects, solving problems, proving theorems, etc.

Also, the participants addressed key issues related to computer aided mathematical education, as: cooperation with the teaching staff, integration of digital tools in the teaching/learning process, standardization of mathematical language for communication between various software tools, archival and distribution of teaching material, etc.

The workshop was an occasion for fruitful contacts between people from different fields: symbolic computation, mathematics, computer graphics, multimedia, human-computer interaction, educational sciences, which presented their experience in math education and their current projects.

MaTILDA '97 was organized in the framework of (and supported by) the European ``SAC Network'' (HCM Network ``Symbolic and Algebraic Computation'' No. ERBCHRXCT940439) of the European Commission, and was hosted and organized by the Research Institute for Applications of Computer Algebra (RIACA), University of Amsterdam.

Programme
(the abstracts are available at http://www.can.nl/matilda97/list_of_talks.html)

Monday, May 12

• Welcome of the participants,
  Leendert van Gastel and Thierry Van Effelterre,
  RIACA, University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

• On the design of an open learning environment for the Web,
  Martti Ala-Rantala,
  Tampere University of Technology, Tampere (Finland).

• Implementing a Physics tutorial in Mathematica. Educational goals, means and pitfalls,
  Elwin Savelsbergh,
  University of Twente, Enschede, and Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands).

• OpenMath, a standard for exchanging mathematical objects,
  Marc Gaëtano,
  INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis (France).

• The Acela project: An interactive book on Lie algebras,
  Steven Pemberton,
  CWI, Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

• Formal series: a tool for teaching and searching,
  Gérard Duchamp,
  University of Rouen (France).

• A Survey of the Theorema project and its application for interactive textbooks in mathematics,
  Bruno Buchberger, Tudor Jebelean, Ileana Tomuta, Daniela Vasaru, Mircea Marin, Robert Pollak, Franz Kriftner,
  RISC-Linz (Austria).

• Java applets for Mathematics,
  Leendert van Gastel,
  CAN Expertise Centre, University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

Tuesday, May 13

• Computer algebra for mathematical learning: Why and how?
  Phillip Kent and Phil Ramsden,
  Imperial College, London (United Kingdom).

• The role of fast network connections in interactive learning environments,
  Jari Multisilta,
  Tampere University of Technology, Pori (Finland).

• Revisiting sort algorithms books using CalICo,
  Maylis Delest,
  University of Bordeaux (France) and Jean-Marc Fédou, University of Nice (France).

• Maths in HTML,
  Stéphane Dalmas,
  INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis (France).

• The IDA project: An interactive book in algebra,
  Hans Cuypers, Gordon Simons and Hans Sterk,
  Technical University Eindhoven (The Netherlands).

• ``Maths and Fun'': Demo of Mathematica 3.0 notebooks for elementary mathematics at (high-) schools,
  Rolf Mertig,
  NIKHEF, Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

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