Monday, May 1, 2023

LIMACON 2023: Look Ma, No Calculator!

  

 LIMACON 2023: Look Ma, No Calculator!


My presentation this year was called: "Look Ma, No Calculator!" In other words, you and your students, can learn to "cut the cord," after a fashion, ditch the expensive calculators and code for free online in the cloud! Read on for more information on the powerful computing environment: 
 
I started my presentaion this way: "Welcome to LIMACON 2023, the 37th annual Long Island MAth CONference at SUNY Old WestBury! Note that LIMACON 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID Lockdown. Also, LIMACON 2021 was a smaller virtual conference. Please sign-in."
 
Please see the rest of my talk in this Zoom recording:


Thanx for attending my session! I hope you had as much fun at LIMACON 2023 as I had presenting this topic. Remember that you are special: you are the first group I have 'taught' F2F since the COVID19 Lockdown of 3/16/2020. I have been teaching remotely at NCC every semester ever since. That's exactly three years and one day today: 3/17/2023! 
 
Dang pandemic ruined everything. I even had to retire from teaching High School on 8/12/2020 after 36 years. BTW, I taught primarily AP Calculus AB&BC, AP Computer Science A&AB, preCalculus and preCompSci. I sure don't miss the ton of commuting, nor do I miss the politics. But I do miss all the fun I had with my kids....

Here's the motivation for my talk: Summer 2018 I was asked to teach Multivariate Calculus, MAT225, at a local college the week before the class was to begin! I never had the opportunity to teach this course before! I had no text book, I had no SmartBoard and I had no calculators or emulators! However, NCC did provide me with a huge multimedia classroom complete with a PC podium, 2 PC Projectors, 2 Large PC Projection Screens, Huge White Board Wall (replacing several large roll-up chalk boards) and several 50" HDTVs mirroring the PC Projector all over the room and all the way up to the balcony seating (see picture above from my Summer 2014 Calculus II class using TI89 emulators)! So, I had to play defense leaning heavily on my tech background to fill in the missing pieces:

1) To review the material I had not seen since the early days of my Honors Physics & Electrical Engineering majors at Cornell in the late 1970s, I took notes on every lesson I could find on MIT OCW and on YouTube related to Multivariate & Vector Calculus!

2) I ran to my WileyPlus rep who had kindly given me access to electronic versions of the AP Computer Science text I use at my high school to ask for an ebook version of the calculus text we were supposed to be using. There was a bit of a SNAFU, however, at the book store whereby they ordered the wrong book. So, I got the latest edition of Calculus III by Deborah Hughes-Hallet on WileyPlus including lots of homework sets, tests and solutions free for the download! 
 
Please note that the textbook we now use at NCC is Calculus I-III 3rd edition by William Briggs from Pearson Press.

3) In order to emulate a SmartBoard, I brought in my 2-in-1 Samsung Chromebook Plus. This Chromebook is one of the first to use Chrome extensions and Droid apps. I primarily used these apps: 
Teamviewer and  

This Chromebook is just a big tablet with an attached keyboard and trackpad mouse plus a garaged, passive S-Pen stylus. I can hand-write notes with the S-Pen and students can see my notes on the PC Projector or HDTVs using the Teamviewer mirroring app and Squid pen app as I recorded for YouTube on the Screencast-o-matic app!
 
Please note that now I'm using the Lenovo Flex 5i and the ACER Spin 714 2-in-1 chromebooks. These chromebooks are great as I can use them in laptop mode to type code or tablet mode the hand-write notes for my students as needed. I'm also using Zoom replacing the functionality of the Teamviewer and Screencast-o-matic apps. The Spin 714 has a garaged self charging active USI stylus that is compatible with the Flex 5i too so I don't have to carry around a bunch of pens! All my notes and code are stored in my Google Drive. So I follow my notes on my Flex 5i while writing notes for the students on my Spin 714 during class. The PC Podium and the Spin 714 are both logged into a Zoom session. The Spin 714 is the host and the PC Podium monitors the Zoom session as if it were a student logging remotely from home. In this way, the students see what I'm writing projected all over the room! I can even record the session for YouTube live during class using Zoom. Squid is still my go to app for hand-writing notes with my stylus. When teaching remotely from home, I use the Flex 5i to monitor the zoom session and add my Raspberry PI 400 to view my notes. The RPI is my desktop using a BlueTooth keyboard and mouse as well as driving a 27 inch HDTV on my desk as a monitor, so it's great for viewing my notes online! Also, SUNY Old Westbury gave us PC Lab 0103 for my presentation during LIMACON 2023:



4) I used SAGE instead of a graphing calculator in this course. So, the attached keyboard and trackpad mouse came in handy! I encouraged my students to bring in their own tablets and laptops to follow along. In fact, most of my notes became SageNotes rather than SmartNotes. Also, tests were "open internet!" During a test, I would sit in the balcony where I could see all my students' laptop screens and confirm that they stayed on task and were only accessing my blog (with sample source code) and SageCell (to check their work) while still showing all their work. The students could even consult my YouTube Playlist for this class, if they were so inclined, but they really did not have time to do that during a test. 

Please note that said Playlist and code samples have since migrated to my Patreon as well as to the class Blackboard site!

So, the remainder of my presentation revolved around how to use SAGE in class. LIMACON was kind enough to put me in a computer room so my attendees could code along with me. SAGE is a Computer Algebra System (CAS) running online in the cloud based on the Python programming language. SAGE has the look and feel of Mathematica and the functionality of MATLAB plus it's free to use on SageCell. There is a commercial version called CoCalc with some more features available too.

Please note that I now use Jupyter Notebooks with a combination of Python, Sympy, Markdown and Latex which is similar to SAGE (sample code below)! We covered a little of everything listed below but did not have time to try 401b nor did we get to the exercises included in a mere 50 minutes. 
 
Sample Jupyter Notebooks

Similar Presentations
Teachers Teaching with Technology at Molloy College 2010
LIMACON 2013: SAGE Advice - Let's replace TI-83s???
Confessions Of A Presenter At LIMACON 2016
 
Last, but not least, I used Jupyter Notebook at least one class per week with my own high school students even in courses that required a graphing calculator on their exit exams such as Regents classes. Some classes, such as preCalculus or Multivariable Calculus, without said requirements, benefit greatly from the use of Jupyter Notebook in place of Graphing Calculators every day all year or all semester long!

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I am available for professional development F2F at your home school (on Long Island, NY) or via Zoom if you would like to learn more about using Jupyter Notebook, Python, Sympy, Markdown, HTML and Latex in your Mathematics classroom! Please contact me: 
  
I can present to small or medium sized groups in a computer room setting so that teachers may follow along and code with me. I have presented during department meetings for an hour at a time. I have also presented at Superintendent Conference days anywhere from 2-3 hour sessions to a whole school day of training!
 
I have written a training manual covering all levels of Mathematics from Arithmetic to Calculus. I have enough material for ten 2 hour interactive training sessions if you are interested!
 
The 5 lessons listed below represent only a small sample of the lessons I have written regarding the use of Jupyter Notebook in mathematics classrooms instead of, or in addition to, expensive graphing calculators. 
 
If you invite me to your school for professional development, we can study more than 50 lessons in a series of ten 2 hour interactive training sessions. 
 
I suppose that I only have myself to blame. I trained math teachers in the 1990s, dragging them kicking and screaming, to use Graphing Calculators for the first time. Now, I've been training teachers for nearly 20 years to kick the habit and embrace cloud computing on the Google Compute Platform (GCP) for free using 
 
 
Google's version of Jupyter Notebook, which integrates nicely into the whole Google Docs and Google Drive paradigm!

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Handouts








YouTube Videos




Well, that's all folks.

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math, Physics & CS

Nassau Community College

A. Jorge García

Applied Math, Physics, CS

Nassau Community College

http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009


Computing Independent Study Facilitator (Baldwin High Retired)

Continental Mathematics League Advisor (Baldwin High Retired)

Baldwin High Chess Club & Chess Team Founder (US Chess Federation Club Baldwin High Retired)

National Computer Science Honor Society Advisor (Grace Hopper NY Chapter Baldwin High Retired)

2017 PAEMST NYS Mathematics Secondary Nominee https://www.paemst.org (Baldwin High Retired)


HTH & stay safe,

A. Jorge Garcia

Teaching With Technology:
Coding since 1975,
HS Math & Physics since 1984,
College Math & CompSci since 1993,
 Linux Clusters since 2002,
CAS since 2011,
Retirement since 2020?
 
AP Computer Science: 1988-2019
AP Calculus BC: 1993-2018 
Applied Math, Physics and CS

Please support my classroom:
www.patreon.com/calcpage2020

https://www.udemy.com/user/alvar-garcia-fernandez

calcpage.redbubble.com

society6.com/calcpage

https://www.ebay.com/usr/sffbclub  



2017 NYS Secondary Math PAEMST Nominee

pastebin youtube slideshare

(IDEs & Code)
MATH 4H, AP CALC, CSH: SAGECELL
APCSA: code.cs50.io
APCSA: replit.com
Jupyter: CoLab

(Curriculae)
CSH: CodeHS
CSH: Code.org
APCSA: Big Java
APCSA: CSAwesome
APCSA: AP Central

RECOMMENDED AP COMPSCI REVIEW:
CRIB SHEET (given during exam)
FREE TEXTBOOKS
REVIEW BARRONS ONLINE 
REVIEW APCENTRAL (past FRQs)
REVIEW EDX REVIEW MOOC01 
REVIEW UDEMY REVIEW MOOC02 
REVIEW CODING_BAT 
REVIEW PRACTICE_IT 
REVIEW RUNESTONE 
AUDIT CS50

RECOMMENDED AP CALCULUS REVIEW:
CRIB SHEET (not given during exam) 
FREE TEXTBOOKS
REVIEW BARRONS ONLINE 
REVIEW APCENTRAL (latest AB FRQs)
REVIEW APCENTRAL (latest BC FRQs)
REVIEW APCENTRAL (older AB FRQs)
REVIEW APCENTRAL (older BC FRQs)
REVIEW EDX MOOC01 
REVIEW COURSERA MOOC02

XTRA CREDIT FILKS RUBRIC 
(1 video = up to 5 bonus points):
1) Use a recognizable tune.
2) Karaoke entire song changing up the words (about STEAM).
3) You are Singing, Dancing or Playing an instrument.
4) You upload your video to YouTube and provide the url.
5) YouTube Description includes the lyrics.

XTRA CREDIT ARTICLES RUBRIC
(up to 5 articles = 1 bonus point each):
1) Cover Sheet is a Summary of the article.
2) FullPage, 12 pt, DoubleSpaced, 1" Margin.
3) Article has to be STEAM related
4) Article has to be a current event.
5) Copy of entire article is attached.

NOTE TO READER:
In recent years our independent study class has been about the care and feeding of Linux Clusters: How to Build A Cluster, How To Program A Cluster and What Can We Do With A Cluster? 

BTW, Shadowfax is the name of the cluster we build! FYI, we offer 4 computing courses: 

CSH: Computer Science Honors with an introduction to coding in Python using SAGE, IDLE, VIDLE and Trinket, 

CSA: AP Computer Science A using CS50, this IDE and this IDE and OpenProcessing, 

CSI: Computing Science Independent Study using OpenMPI and 

CSL: Computing Science Lab which is a co-requisite for Calculus students using Computer Algebra Systems such as SAGE.

====================
CIS(theta) aka CSI
Membership Hall Of Fame!

CIS(theta)* 2020-2021: 
DiegoM(12), GeordiP(12), MattB(12), MattO(12), MelanyeCG(12), NickE(12), WilliamF(12)
*Honorable Mention: I retired before we got to start our project this year...

CIS(theta) 2019-2020:
AaronH(12), AidanSB(12), JordanH(12), PeytonM(12)

CIS(theta) 2018-2019:
GaiusO(11), GiovanniA(12), JulianP(12), TosinA(12)

CIS(theta) 2017-2018:
BrandonB(12), FabbyF(12), JoehanA(12), RusselK(12)

CIS(theta) 2016-2017: 
DanielD(12), JevanyI(12), JuliaL(12), MichaelS(12), YaminiN(12)

CIS(theta) 2015-2016: 
BenR(11), BrandonL(12), DavidZ(12), GabeT(12), HarrisonD(11), HunterS(12), JacksonC(11), SafirT(12), TimL(12)

CIS(theta) 2014-2015: 
BryceB(12), CheyenneC(12), CliffordD(12), DanielP(12), DavidZ(12), GabeT(11), KeyhanV(11), NoelS(12), SafirT(11)

CIS(theta) 2013-2014: 
BryanS(12), CheyenneC(11), DanielG(12), HarineeN(12), RichardH(12), RyanW(12), TatianaR(12), TylerK(12)

CIS(theta) 2012-2013: 
Kyle Seipp(12)

CIS(theta) 2011-2012: 
Graham Smith(12), George Abreu(12), Kenny Krug(12), Lucas Eager-Leavitt(12)

CIS(theta) 2010-2011: 
David Gonzalez(12), Herbert Kwok(12), Jay Wong(12), Josh Granoff(12), Ryan Hothan(12)

CIS(theta) 2009-2010: 
Arthur Dysart(12), Devin Bramble(12), Jeremy Agostino(12), Steve Beller(12)

CIS(theta) 2008-2009: 
Marc Aldorasi(12), Mitchel Wong(12)

CIS(theta) 2007-2008: 
Chris Rai(12), Frank Kotarski(12), Nathaniel Roman(12)

CIS(theta) 1988-2007: 
A. Jorge Garcia, Gabriel Garcia, James McLurkin, Joe Bernstein, ... too many to mention here!
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