Scientific Computing
Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math
Teaching & Learning Math & Science with Technology
Graphing Calculators, Numerical Methods, Computer Algebra Systems & Linux Clusters
Why Shadowfax? Our cluster is so fast that we named it after the Lord Of The Rings character!
Website once known as CalcPage.tripod.com (1988 – 2008)
UPDATE-01 (11/29/14): Originally posted 12/14/13, what follows is a description of what we did for CS ED Week, aka The Hour Of Code, aka Admiral Grace Murray Hopper Day, aka Lady Ada Lovelace's Birthday last year. This year we are doing much the same thing. Our goal here is twofold. (1) Promote Computer Science Education in general. (2) Recruit more students for the APCS class next year!
UPDATE-02 (12/1/14): Last year was based on this Hour Of Code Tutorial from codehs.com. This year I'd like to try this or this tutorial from code.org. I'm having a problem with the new tutorials. They load fine at home, but take forever to load in school. So, I'm downloading the whole thing to run locally on each of my student PCs! I used the following commandline to download the webste recursively,
UPDATE-03 (12/5/14): I'm not getting very far with code.org as yet. I'd like to do the code.org tutorials with my AP classes as they saw the codehs.com tutorials last year. Also, code.org has an Angry Birds tutorial and and a Disney's Frozen tutorial. So, I can do one in the morning with AP Calculus and the other in the afternoon with AP Computer Science as I have some of the same students in each. For students who have not done The Hour of Code with me, codehs.com's Karel the Dog is an easier intro. Codehs.com has two new tutorials. One is on mySQL and Harry Potter which is a little dry. The other is on making graphics with JavaScript which is a little challenging. I also like the code.org tutorials because they feature experts in the video tutorials like Bill Gates and Mark Zukerburg teaching about if/then/else branches and repeat/until loops! Here's some videos from code.org:
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper is one of my personal idols! Not only did she usher in the entire industry of Software Engineering but she single handedly invented Computer Programming Languages and Compilers! She was a Math Professor, a Naval Officer, the developer of COBOL and an all around class act!
Grace Hopper's birthday was Monday 12/9. To honor her memory, I registered all my classes for an Hour Of Code. Maybe you'd like to participate as well? The Hour Of Code is about exposing as many students as possible to Computer Science in all disciplines. I'm making this presentation during course selection week as well to encourage students to take Computer Science at my High School! Due to budget cuts, teacher layoffs, large class sizes and canceled electives, I'm recommending Honors 9th Graders take AP Computer Science next year. I used to recommend an intro course, but I can't anymore....
CSEDWEEK was an unprecedented international effort. Over 15,000,000 students at more than 30,000 locations (mostly schools) in nearly 200 countries were registered to participate sometime during last week and wrote more than 500,000,000 lines of code!
I teach Computer Science and see it as a great tool in all disciplines. It's a shame that more students don't take Computer Science in High School. Taking Computer Science can lead to a great major in college and a great profession! I also use Computer Science in all my Math and Science courses in High School and College!
I've been teaching people how to code since 1975. I've also been teaching AP Computer Science at the High School level since 1984. Finally, I've been teaching computing at the College level since 1993. Needless to say, I'm a vehement advocate for a strong Computer Science Education in particular and a challenging STEM curriculum in general for every High School student. In fact, every single class I teach, every single day of the week, is devoted to some aspect of STEM! STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering and Math." Actually, I try to incorporate STEAM into my classroom: "Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math." By Arts I do mean Art (fractals, 3D graphics, animation) but I also try to tie in plenty of History, Literature and Culture.
Mine is one of the few High Schools in the USA to offer a Computer Science curriculum! CS50 at Harvard, see playlist above, covers a lot of the same material we cover here at Baldwin Senior High in my AP Computer Science class. They use Scratch, C, php and JavaScript whereas we use Python, SAGE, MPI and Java, but the concepts are the same! Sadly, the United States is falling far behind other countries in training professionals for jobs in the 21st Century that will require this skill more and more! So, in answer to this growing demand, here's what I teach (in addition to Math and Science): Intro to Computer Science (python):
HOUR OF CODE Instructions for Monday's tutorial: (1) Each student should go to http://codehs.com/hourofcode (2) Sign up for CodeHS using this code: F2B9 (3) Start learning! You will be completing a tutorial on programming for beginners. Fun will be had by all! Course Selection Week DropBox! Well, that's all folks.
Yeah, Quarter II has begun! We started the unit on vectors by talking about complex numbers in CIS(theta), aka polar form, and 2D vector form. We also talked about adding, subtracting and multiplying, via the dot product, 2D vectors. Next week, we'll talk about 3D vectors and the cross product!
Since we're doing Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus, it's time for our Astronomy related YouTubes! We had 2 guest speakers talk about the Asteroid Apophos and its flyby in 2029!
Week1: Neil deGrasse Tyson!
Week2: Bill Nye the Science Guy?
Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 10
Quarter I Weeks 9&10 Conics!
10/27/14-11/07/14
Yeah, Quarter I is done! We finally finished Conic Sections using the Completing The Square algorithm to get Standard Forms for Parabolas, Ellipses and Hyperbolera! For those graphs that we could not use the Completing The Square algorithm, we used SAGE and polar_plot(). We also talked about parametrically defined trajectories and SAGE's parametric_plot().
YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS:
Since we're doing Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus, it's time for our Astronomy related YouTubes! We started by talking about really big and really small numbers and metric prefixes.
Week9: NEW Powers of Ten.
Week10: Original Powers of Ten.
Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 10
Quarter I Weeks 7&8 Conics!
10/13/14-10/24/14
We finished the Matrix unit (CH11) with nonLinear Systems and Linear Programming. Then we started Conic Sections (CH10). In fact, we're having a quiz right now, as I type, on the Standard Form Equations for Parabloas, Ellipses and Hyperbolera! We are focusing on conics with horizontal or vertical symmetry right now. Next week, we'll deal with what I call Twisted Conics using Polar Mode. Then, the following week, we'll revisit the concept of foci and do some real world problem solving!
YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS:
If it's October, it's gotta be Admiral Grace Murray Hopper!
Week8: Walter Isaacson on CBS Sunday Morning (from my DVDR).
Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 11
Quarter I Weeks 5&6 Matices!
9/29/14-10/10/14
During these past 2 weeks, we started solving 2D and 3D Systems using Matrix Arithmetic and Matrix Algebra! In fact, we are having a quiz this week using Cramer's Rule of Determinants as well as Matrix Inverses to solve these systems. I make a point of doing 2D problems totally by hand (no calculator or CAS). We are doing 3D systems on SAGE!
YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS:
If it's October, it's gotta be Admiral Grace Murray Hopper!
Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 11
Quarter I Weeks 3&4 Systems!
9/15/14-9/26/14
OK, let me go back to my weekly or biweekly summaries. The day by day summary is too time consuming to write and I think too tedious to read! So, this will be a 2 week
summary as this past week was quite short
(Thursday and Friday was Rosh Hashanah).
We finished Chapter 12 on Sequences and Series with the Binomial Expansion Theorem. Then we started Chapter 11 on solving 2D and 3D Systems of Equations. Next week, this will lead to the development of Matrix Arithmetic and Matrix Algebra. We will even get into some Linear Programming! I hope you are getting a lot out of our ScreenCasts (see below) which include SageCell WorkSheets in the YouTube Descriptions.
We also celebrated "The Great TI 84+ UnBoxing of 2014!" We unboxed and distributed 24 out of the 48 84s that were donated to our class. I'm still waiting on some calculator rental forms to give out the remaining 24 GCs. BTW, these are not really rental forms as no one pays a dime until the end of the year if the GC is lost or damaged (like a book card really). So, over the past several years we've upgraded our emulators from Ziggie (VTI-83 and TILEM-83) to Frodo (WABBIT-84) to SAGE!
Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 12
Quarter I Week 2 Sequences and Series!
9/8/14-9/12/14
MONDAY: Lesson 1201A Recursion Now we redo 1201 by looking at sequences and series defined recursively. TUESDAY: Lesson 1202 Arithmetic Seqs Today we talked about adding finite arithmetic sequences. WEDNESDAY: Lesson 1203 Geometric Seqs Then we derived a formula for summing finite and infinite geometric sequences. BTW, if it's September, YouTube Wednesday must include Tom Lehrer's New Math! THURSDAY: Lesson 1204 Induction Proofs Finally, used Peano's Postulates to prove sums by induction! FRIDAY: Lesson 1204 Induction Practice We went over the homework as a review for a QUiz on Monday. Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Chapter 12
Quarter I Week 1 First Week Back!
9/1/14-9/5/14
I don't usually do a day by day rundown of the week, but here goes nothing! MONDAY: Labor Day (nothing to report) TUESDAY: Superintendent's Conferences where we spent all day in meetings except for the last 2 hours of the day when we finally got to set up our rooms. I spent those 2 hours moving 100 textbooks, arranging and tweeking 25 PCs, finding 25 chairs and placing 6 tables. Then I found that my SSH server's RAID drive crashed, so I had to setup openSSH on an alternate server I used to have for FTP. That's OK since I don't need the FTP server much anymore. I use the SSH sever for my AP Computer Science students to login from home and finish their Java projects. I share files with my students through Edmodo. I upload my files on DropBox, SageCell and YouTube aka my cloud! WEDNESDAY: First Day of Classes The first day of every quarter starts with the "Ceremony Of The Seats" (new seating assignments). The students come into a dark room except for the PC monitors and the SmartBoard. On the SmartBoard I'm playing an MP3 of the sound track to "A Beautiful Mind" over VLC. Since this isn't an MP4, VLC adds some wild special effects on the SmartBoard so it's all cool. Then I walk to each seat and call each student using my SmartPhone as a flashlight as if I'm an usher in the Movie Theater. It's all very dramatic. Then we hand out books and book cards, go over the syllabus and fill out some biographical forms. Sorry, there's no instruction the first day of classes. YOUTUBE: Since it was Wednesday, after all, I had to show a FILK or two! So, at the end of the period I snuck in our own student made Frozen and then the infamous Mathmaticious! THURSDAY: Lesson 1200 Intro to SAGE Finally, we say goodbye to Ziggie (TI-83) and play around with SAGECELL! All we did was some basic Arithmetic and Algebra but I think we got across the power of a robust Computer Algebra System, aka CAS, such as SAGE! FRIDAY: Lesson 1201 Sequences & Series We dive right into sequences and series using for loops and list comprehensions in python! TECH NOTE: I recorded these ScreenCasts last year. The audio isn't great as I was using a BlueTooth Mic I inherited after Hurricane Sandy. It took me a while to get all my equipment replaced, sorry. Math 4R: preCalculus + SAGECELL SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 4R:
Ziggie must die - No more TI-83!
Quarter I Week 0 August Preparation:
PreCalculus is all new this year:
(1) My preCalculus for Juniors classes will start the school year with Chapter 12 this year! We start with Chapter 12 so we don't waste a lot of time reviewing topics from Chapters 1 and 2 which are about solving Linear Equations and Quadratics! So, when midyear is upon us, we can switch to Calculus without skipping important topics at the end of the preCalculus text. As such, we cover as much preCalculus as we can in the Fall Semester and as much AP Calculus AB material as we can in the Spring in preparation for Calculus next year! (2) We are using a Computer Algebra System called SAGE instead of the TI-83. We used to call the TI-83 "Ziggie." Hence the title of this post: Ziggie must die! The grand experiment this year is to see how well students learn the Math while learning to code in python at the same time! Well, it's not such a grand experiment as we've been using SAGECELL for several years now. What's different is that we won't be using the TI-83 this year as we just don't need it anymore! (3) We will be learning a lot of python in class. You can learn some python code on your own too with this online, interactive textbook! (4) Here's a taste of our first day:
Yeah, Quarter II has begun! After playing with some TI nSpire BASIC programming, we did a lot of LSUM, RSUM, TRAPSUM and ERRORTRAP as well as MIDSUM and SIMPSUM! Now we're working on Definite vs. Indefinite Integrals. Our last topic in this unit will by U-Substitution next week.
Since we're doing Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus, it's time for our Astronomy related YouTubes! We had 2 guest speakers talk about the Asteroid Apophos and its flyby in 2029!
Week1: Neil deGrasse Tyson!
Week2: Bill Nye the Science Guy?
NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT05
Quarter I Weeks 9&10 AntiDerivatives!
10/27/14-11/07/14
Yeah, Quarter I is done! We finally finished Applications of the Derivative with Related Rates. Then we started AntiDerivatives! After playing with AntiDerivatives and DiffEqus analytically, we started to evaluate some Riemann Sums arithmetically by hand. Soon, we're going to program the TI nSpire CX CAS to do them for us! We are about to write LRTE and MTSE. LRTE will output LSUM, RSUM, TRAPSUM and ERRORTRAP. MTSE will add MIDSUM and SIMPSUM!
YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS:
Since we're doing Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus, it's time for our Astronomy related YouTubes! We started by talking about really big and really small numbers and metric prefixes.
Week9: NEW Powers of Ten.
Week10: Original Powers of Ten.
NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT04
Quarter I Weeks 7&8 Applications!
10/13/2014 - 10/24/2014
In UNIT04 we turn our attention to the Applications of the Derivative. We developed the ideas behind Rolle's Theorem and the Mean Value Theorem as well as Optimization problems! We also learned how to program the TI nSpire CX CAS with TI-BASIC. We wrote a program to solve Quadratic Equations for practice. Then we wrote a function for Newton's Method for finding Roots!
YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS:
If it's October, it's gotta be Admiral Grace Murray Hopper!
Week8: Walter Isaacson on CBS Sunday Morning (from my DVDR).
NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT03
Quarter I Weeks 5&6 Differentiation Rules!
9/29/2014 - 10/10/2014
During these past couple of weeks we finished UNIT03 covering the Product, Quotient and Chain Rules. We finished by working with Implicit Differentiation. UNIT04 will cover applications of differentiation including the use of Implicit Differentiation in Related Rates problems. We'll also cover optimization!
YOUTUBE WEDNESDAYS:
If it's October, it's gotta be Admiral Grace Murray Hopper!
NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube descriptions include links to code and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT03
Quarter I Weeks 3&4 Differentiation Rules!
9/15/2014 - 9/26/2014
OK, let me go back to my weekly or biweekly summaries. The day by day summary is too time consuming to write and I think too tedious to read! So, this will be a 2 week
summary as this past week was quite short
(Thursday and Friday was Rosh Hashanah).
We finished UNIT02 on Limits and Continuity. Then we started UNIT03 on the Algebraic Rules of Differentiation. I think you will get a lot out of our new ScreenCasts (see below) featuring the TI nSpire CX CAS!
We also celebrated "The Great TI NSPIRE UnBoxing of 2014!" We unboxed and distributed 22 out of the 24 nSpires that were donated to our class. I'm still waiting on some calculator rental forms to give out the remaining 2 GCs. BTW, these are not really rental forms as no one pays a dime until the end of the year if the GC is lost or damaged (like a book card really). We are also waiting for a our DonorsChoose Project to be funded to get another 14 GCs! So, over the past several years we've upgraded our emulators from Hal and Colossus (VTI-83/89 and TIEMU-89) to Castiel (KARMTI-nSpire)!
NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube desciptions include links to handouts and notes if you need them. Here's an oldie but goodie featuring the TI-89. I was sick last week and could not re-record this ScreenCast, sorry. OK, I just recorded a new version of 302!
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT02
Quarter I Week 2 Limits and Continuity!
9/8/2014 - 9/12/2014
MONDAY: Lesson 107 Functions vs Relations
We talked about graphing General Form Conic Sections by Completing The Square and using Polar Notation! TUESDAY: Lesson 201 1-Sided Limits Now we look at Limits at Infinity and limits on either side of points of discontinuity. WEDNESDAY: Lesson 202 Continuity Now we define Continuity and use the Intermediate Value Theorem. BTW, if it's September, YouTube Wednesday must include Tom Lehrer's New Math! THURSDAY: Lesson 202 Continuity Nothing new today, we just went over the homework in groups on our mini marker boards from http://whiteboardsusa.com FRIDAY: Lesson 203 Definition of f'(x) Finally, we defined the Derivative as the limit of the secant line slopes! NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube desciptions include links to handouts and notes if you need them.
TECHNOTE: If you are having trouble running KARMTI at home, you may need to reinstall the OS. Enter this line: /1=boot1.img /MXC /PB=boot2.img /PO=TI-NspireCXCAS-3.6.0.550.tcc /K4 /N /R in (FILE)(BOOT OPTIONS)(COMMANDLINE) Then enter myFlash.bin in (FILE)(SAVE FLASH AS) Then enter this line: /1=boot1.img /F=myFlash.bin /K4 in (FILE)(BOOT OPTIONS)(COMMANDLINE) Then do (FILE)(EXIT) UPDATE: You may also have to goto (FILE)(SKINS) to enable a skin! The next time you run KARMTI, it should default to "/1=boot1.img /F=myFlash.bin /K4" using the new OS without you having to enter anything as it works in class. BTW, the new OS file "TI-NspireCXCAS-3.6.0.550.tcc" is already in the KARMTI folder I gave you. What we do in class requires OS 3.1 or greater, I'm using 3.6 OS. To get the latest TI nSPire CX CAS OS goto http://education.ti.com/en/us/home Good Luck!
Teaching Math 5H:
UNIT01+UNIT02
Quarter I Week 1 First Week Back!
9/1/2014 - 9/5/2014
I don't usually do a day by day rundown of the week, but here goes nothing!
MONDAY: Labor Day (nothing to report) TUESDAY: Superintendent's Conferences where we spent all day in meetings except for the last 2 hours of the day when we finally got to set up our rooms. I spent those 2 hours moving 100 textbooks, arranging and tweeking 25 PCs, finding 25 chairs and placing 6 tables. Then I found that my SSH server's RAID drive crashed, so I had to setup openSSH on an alternate server I used to have for FTP. That's OK since I don't need the FTP server much anymore. I use the SSH sever for my AP Computer Science students to login from home and finish their Java projects. I share files with my students through Edmodo. I upload my files on DropBox, SageCell and YouTube aka my cloud! WEDNESDAY: First Day of Classes The first day of every quarter starts with the "Ceremony Of The Seats" (new seating assignments). The students come into a dark room except for the PC monitors and the SmartBoard. On the SmartBoard I'm playing an MP3 of the sound track to "A Beautiful Mind" over VLC. Since this isn't an MP4, VLC adds some wild special effects on the SmartBoard so it's all cool. Then I walk to each seat and call each student using my SmartPhone as a flashlight as if I'm an usher in the Movie Theater. It's all very dramatic. Then we hand out books and book cards, go over the syllabus and fill out some biographical forms. Sorry, there's no instruction the first day of classes. YOUTUBE: Since it was Wednesday, after all, I had to show a FILK or two! So, at the end of the period I snuck in our own student made Frozen and then the infamous Mathmaticious! THURSDAY: Lesson 101 Intro to TI-nSpire Finally, we say goodbye to Hal (TI-89) and play around with the KARMTI emulator on each PC as we don't have all our TI nSpire CX CAS Graphing Calculators from DonorsChoose as yet. The students are still trying to get some FREE Google Gift Cards from Codecademy! TECH NOTE: I was ScreenCasting Lesson 101 from the front of the room at the SmartBoard using SmartNotebook with my USB Mic attached to the SmartBoard. This was all well and good until the keys on the emulator started sticking. So, I had to go to my PC in the back of the room to use a standard keyboard and mouse instead of the SmartBoard for input on the emulator. FRIDAY: Lesson 106 Implicit Graphs I used to do a whole UNIT1 on preCalculus Review. Now I just sneak in a few of those lessons before UNIT2 on Limits. These UNIT1 Lessons are mainly an intro to the calculator and review of a bit of Algebra and Trig. We play around with Function, Parametric, DiffEqu and Polar modes all in the first few days of class! TECH NOTE: I was ScreenCasting Lesson 106 from the back of the room at my PC with the USB Mic attached to the PC to fix the problems I listed in the last technical note. I still had a problem late in the ScreenCast when xournal, the pen app I was using, started drawing random lines all over the SmartBoard whenever I put the stylus down on my tablet. I was using xournal instead of SmartNotebook and a DROID Tablet over WiFi instead of the SmartBoard like the old days when all I had was a PC Projector. Maybe I'll try using SmartNotebook with the Tablet on Monday to see if that's a bit better. The problem with this setup is that when I use SmartNotebook with aconv, my ScreenCaster, and SplashTop (to connect the tablet over WiFi) then SmartNotebook is a bit laggy. UPDATE: Today is Monday and I recorded ScreenCast 107 as above. I got a lot of lag between writing with the stylus and seeing what I wrote on SmartNotebook. So, I moved every thing back up front next to the SmartBoard. I attached an extra USB keyboard and USB mouse as well as the USB Mic directly to the SmartBoard. Luckily there's 3 USB ports! So, Tuesday I'll record ScreenCast 201 from the front of the room using the SmartBoard with SmartNotebook which worked well the first day (101). When I need to use the nSpire emulator, I can now use the keyboard and mouse at the front of the room to avoid the sticky keys! Neither will I need SpalshTop nor the Tablet. I still have the standard keyboard and mouse on the teacher/smartboard PC at the back of the room. NEW AP Calculus BC + nSpire SCREENCASTS: YouTube desciptions include links to handouts and notes if you need them.
Teaching Math 5H:
Hal Must Die - No More TI-89!
Quarter I Week 0 August Preparation
AP Calculus BC is switching gears this year. We're leaving our TI-89s behind for the first time in 20 years! We will go forth and conquer with our new TI nSpire CX CAS Graphing Calculators! We've been running project after project on Donorschoose and nearly have a class set of nSpires to loan out. We used to call the TI-89 "Hal," hence the title of this post: Hal Must Die - No More TI-89! It shouldn't be a tough transition, however, as the 89 and the nSpire are very similar Computer Algebra Systems aka CAS. However, the nSpire has a nicer color, hi-res, bright interface and a document system to save our work. It also has the LUA programming environment, but I think we'll stick to TI-BASIC when writing programs for Calculus class! Whenever I change textbooks or technology, I have to rerecord the course for YouTube. So, I'll record AP Calculus BC all over again with a bunch of new screencasts featuring the nSpire! This was the first course I ever recorded, so it's about time. Here's a taste of the nSpire (not my video):
Applied Math, Physics and CS
