Wednesday, March 1, 2023

LIMACON 2023 SUNY Old Wesbury!

 LIMACON 2023 SUNY Old Wesbury!


2023 UPDATE: This year's talk is entitled 
"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 this new computing environment. What follows is a repost describing my LIMACON 2019 presentation. My talk this year is an update. 
 
Here's my 2023 Zoom recording:


2023 ANNOUNCEMENT: I will be available for professional development at your home school if you want to learn more about using Jupyter Notebooks, Python, Sympy, Markdown, HTML and Latex in your Mathematics classroom! 
Please contact me: 

If it's March it's gotta be LIMACON, right? Yes! I was invited as a guest speaker once again this year. I've been a speaker at LIMACON every few years since 2001. I've also been an avid attendee since the first LIMACON in 1985. So, welcome to LIMACON 2019, the 34rd annual Long Island MAth CONference at SUNY Old WestBury!

2023 UPDATE: Welcome to LIMACON 2023, the 37th annual Long Island MAth CONference at SUNY Old WestBury! Note that LIMACON 2020 was cancelled due to COVID Lockdown. Also, LIMACON 2021 was a smaller virtual conference. (sign-in)

My 2019 presentation is entitled: 
"Confessions Of A Visiting Professor." 
As such, here's the motivation for my talk: Summer 2018 I was asked to teach Multivariate Calculus, MAT225, at a local college (NCC) 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! 

2023 UPDATE: 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: ScreencastomaticTeamviewer and Squid. 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! 

2023 UPDATE: 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, here's PC Lab 0103 we had for my presentation during LIMACON 2023:



4) Last, but not least, 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. 

2023 UPDATE: Said Playlist and code samples have since migrated to my Patreon site as well as to my class' Blackboard!

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 (see sample code below). 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.

2023 UPDATE: We now use Jupyter Notebooks with Python, Sympy, Markdown and Latex instead of 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. The 5 lessons listed below represent a small sample of less than 10% 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 sessions. I use Jupyter Notebook at least one class per week even in courses that require a graphing calculator on their exit exams such as Regents classes. Some classes, such as preCalculus or Multivariable Calculus, without such requirements, may benefit from the use of Jupyter Notebook all year long!

Handouts









LIMACON 2023 Brochure (Speaker #8)

YouTube Videos




Well, that's all folks.

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College


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!
====================




Wednesday, February 1, 2023

I grok Spock & Spock groks me!

 I grok Spock & Spock groks me!

Please support my classroom:

http://society6.com/calcpage

http://www.patreon.com/calcpage2020

https://www.redbubble.com/people/calcpage/shop

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

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post about Math and CS class to pay our respects to a great actor, poet, photographer, artist and activist. I speak of course of the passing of the one and only Leonard Nimoy. 


Mr. Nimoy, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mr. Spock in Star Trek The Original Series TV episodes and movies, passed Friday 2/27/15 due to complications related to COPD. Leonard was buried on Sunday 3/1/15 and I sat shiva, in spirit. 

At the time, I could not bring myself to write my regular blog post after such a shock. I knew he was in the hospital and that he was suffering with COPD for some time, but I had no idea he was near death! 

Mr. Nimoy was such an inspiration to many people of my generation.  He inspired many fellow artists. He was very active in the Orthodox Jewish community. Last, but not least, I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that he inspired an entire generation of new scientists.

I grew up with Star Trek on TV and NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon. If it weren't for Leonard, I may not have pursued a career in the Sciences, much less become a teacher of STEAM. I owe a lot to Mr. Nimoy. Growing up, he was one of my idols. Due to his positive example in my life, I was very much like Spock: stoic, intellectual and confident. Over the years, after installing, troubleshooting and reinstalling PC Labs over and over, I think I've gravitated more toward Chief Engineer Scotty: "The Miracle Worker." I know my son, the doctor, was influenced by Bones McCoy. However, I myself, learned a lot from Spock.

Of course, Mr. Nimoy is also known for his work on The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery and In Search Of TV episodes as well as several movies. He even made several records including one with a song about the hobbit of hobbits, Bilbo Baggins! Leonard is also known for recordings about teaching and sharing his Jewish faith.

Mr. Nimoy, ever humble, accomplished quite a bit during his lifetime. Leonard came from a modest family which emigrated from Russia to the Bronx. His father was a barber. His family did not think that acting would be the best career choice for him, but I am grateful he made that choice.

I never met Leonard. I wish I had. I have seen him on YouTube at several conferences. I did meet George Takei, Majel Barret Roddenberry and Harlan Ellison at I-CON, but that's as close as I got to the Star Trek Legends. The last time we saw Mr. Sulu, my eldest son was a teenager. He had the bright idea of getting hold of Mr. Takei's tea cup that he drank from during his Q&A so we could sell it on E-Bay in the early days of online auctions. However, someone else beat us to it....
 
Here's one of his last posts on his Twitter feed:
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I find that I am uncharacteristically at a loss for words....

No more, Mr. is greatly missed!

Well, that's all folks.

Be well,

A. Jorge Garcia

Applied Math & CS

Nassau Community College


Well, that's all folks!

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!
====================