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)
Wow, you've made it! Summer Session is not for the feint of heart, especially when it's 5 weeks, 4 nights per week, 3 hours each night of Multivariable Calculus! Gratz! You deserve a medal! Pat yourself on the back! I hope you learned a lot during our Summer Session II at NCC. Here's a short, albeit incomplete, summary of what we covered:
This week we just reviewed Chapters 16 and 17 on Monday for a TEST4B on Tuesday. Then we reviewed the entire course on Wednesday for our final TEST5B on Thursday.
Don't forget our educational FILKS/DOX:
Last but not least, I hope you enjoyed learning to do math pythonically with Jupyter Notebooks on Google CoLab! Graphing Calculators are so last century! I know TI makes some models that include Computer Algebra Systems such as the TI-89 and the TI-nSpire, both of which I used extensively when I taught AP Calculus BC for 25 years (1993-2018). Also, newer models have Python instead of TI-BASIC but Google Colab works seamlessly with Google Docs and it's FREE!
FYI, my coding background comes from teaching Computer Science Honors (CSH), AP Computer Science (CSA & CSAB), Computing Science Lab (CSL-Scientific Computing) and Computing Science Independent Study (CSI-Cluster Computing) for 35 years (1984-2019)!
Thanx for a great Summer Session. Enjoy the rest of the Summer. Good luck in all your future pursuits!
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,
YouTube Wednesdays are alive and well! Every Wednesday I try to introduce my students to guest speakers from around the world talking about something related to topics in Math and Computing that we're studying without ever leaving class!
Update:
I did something a little different this year. I decided to start each month with a filk. So, the first Wednesday of the month this whole year so far has been devoted to Tom Lehrer: New Math, The Elements, Lobachevsky and Hanukkah In Santa Monica plus Christmas Time! The only exception was January when I did my New Year's Resolution post. The 2nd semester has just begun and I have run out of Tom Lehrer FIlks about Math and Science. Maybe we'll play Chris Hadfield aka The Singing Astronaut on the ISS, Aurelio Voltaire, Weird Al, DaVinci's NoteBook, Bare Naked Ladies, Tom Smith, They Might Be Giants, Epic Rap Battles or How It Should Have Ended? Another thing I changed up this year: I started the first semester, after filking, with StarTalk TV videos by Neil DeGrase Tyson from the National Geographic App. I played The Martian episode for my CompSci students and the Ramanujan episode for my Math students. Now, second semester I'll start with Bill Nye Saves The World episodes from Netflix! I'll have to screen The Martian and The Man Who Knew Infinity movies after AP Exams this year too!
Original Post:
Below you will find a number of educational documentaries I show in various orders each year. I usually start the year with some Filks by Tom Lehrer and a few documentaries about Admiral Grace Murray Hopper. Then I start showing NOVA and National Geographic documentaries. At this point, I'll show a different documentary in Math class as opposed to Computer Science class since some of my students are in both classes. Above is a new documentary I screened in November about a laptop someone lost in the Mediterranean some 2000 years ago??? I think that the TED Talk below talks about the inventer of this laptop! What say you?
Below, you will find a sample of all my YouTube Wednesdays from just a few years ago!
June YouTube Wednesdays!
Last, but not least, we talked about Watson the SuperComputer on NOVA and Jeopardy. I hope you enjoyed our YouTube interludes. Have a great Summer, see you next year!
May YouTube Wednesdays!
YouTube Wednesdays would not be complete without the Nova about Cliff Stoll and the Cuckoo's Egg!
April YouTube Wednesdays!
We started one of my favorite YouTube Wednesday features. In the name of AP Computer Science review of Computer History and Computer Literacy, I played the only National Geographic Special not about warm, fuzzy animals! It's called "Miniature Miracle: The Computer Chip" and it's all about the history of electronic computing. I remember seeing this live on NBC around 1983 listening to Alexander Scourby's iconic voice and Elmer Bernstein's phenomenal musical theme! I used to have this on online, but YouTube made me take it down. I copied it from my VHS version, recorded live with rabbit ears, to a DVD. I then uploaded it to YouTube as MP4 files. I still have these files to play with VLC, unfortunately I can't show them to you online. You can get your own VHS copy on EBay or Amazon if you like! Here's a little review from 1985 in The New York Times!
February & March YouTube Wednesdays!
We haven't had a lot of time of late for YouTube Wednesdays what with all the Snow Days and February Break. We did manage to start a NOVA called "Ancient Computer" about a lump of bronze found off the coast of Greece. It was found with several lost works of art dated circa 70 BC. However, noone thought anything of this lump of bronze until someone decided to X-ray it! I'm showing this episode of NOVA for 10 minutes each Wednesday through the end of March. BTW, this used to be on YouTube. Unfortunately, the Nova YouTube Channel was converted to show only 2-3 minute previews, so you have to go to PBS.org to view full episodes. I used the PBS app on my Kindle Fire HD 8.9 over WiFi. I also used an HDMI cable to attach the Kindle to the SmartBoard in HDMI mode.
ALERT: Look at what Neil DeGrasse Tyson is up to! Dr. Tyson was one of our "Guest Speakers" during our Astronomy Month YouTube Wednesdays (see November below). He has now taken it upon himself to update the seminal Carl Sagan series named Cosmos. You can catch the new and improved Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey starting this Sunday at 9PM on NatGeoWild. Midterm Week: Ingite, TED and Filk!
Showing a 5-10 minute YouTube at the beginning of class once a week is a great way to start a 5-10 minute discussion on interesting topics related to your curriculum to which students may otherwise never be exposed! Recently, I tried out an Ignite Thursday. The Ignite Show used to be on the BBC. It was great in that the speaker had exactly 5 minutes to speak. Also, the speaker had 20 slides to talk about that auto-advanced every 15 seconds. Needless to say, this makes for a very quick and informative, presentation! I found a nice Ignite by a curator at the Walters Museum, William Noel. His talk was about how he discovered long lost texts by Archimedes buried inside a medieval palimpsest. What's amazing about this discovery is that the text shows Archimedes doing advanced Combinatorics and Calculus circa 200BC! That Ignite video led us to a TED Tuesday also by William Noel! Now I think I have to show a documentary about the Antikythera Device! There's a nice NOVA about Ancient Computers and here's a related youtube.
By the way, I also throw in Calculus Filks at random intervals whenever we cover a related topic (some are by my own students):
Definition of Continuity
Definition of the Derivative
Position, Velocity, Acceleration
Product Rule
Quotient Rule
Chain Rule
AntiDerivatives
More AntiDerivatives
Some Physics
Some BC Calculus
Even Outer Space
Don't forget VI Hart!
January YouTube Wednesdays!
Now we turn our attention to Nova and Fractals:
December YouTube Wednesdays!
December 9th was Grace Hopper's birthday and the Hour Of Code! So, we revisited Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace. We were also practicing preCalculus and Calculus Carols which are the best math filks ever.
This month I covered Conic Sections and Planet Orbits in preCalculus class. So, Youtube Wednesday saw several Astronomers as Guest Speakers. We have several Guest Speakers and Documentaries though out the year.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Bill Nye
Phil Plait
Carl Sagan
October YouTube Wednesdays!
October is devoted to one of my all time inspirations: Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.
