Fun with Geometry
Yesterday I attended a short talk given by the University Mathematics department. The speaker was Dr. Michael Hvidsten from Gustavus Adolphus College, and he presented his exceptional Geometry Explorer program.
I'm always skeptical when I hear about a new piece of math software, because more often than not it's just going to be misused in the classroom, and professors will end up teaching people how to use the program rather than how to do math. (There's one professor here who's notorious for using Mathematica in each and every one of his classes, even CALCULUS I - my question is why?)
But this program is truly great. It's intuitive, it's easy to use, and it's powerful. More than anything, it's FUN to play with, and free for the taking. This is what math software should do, encourage exploration and experimentation rather than doing the work for you.
I'm always skeptical when I hear about a new piece of math software, because more often than not it's just going to be misused in the classroom, and professors will end up teaching people how to use the program rather than how to do math. (There's one professor here who's notorious for using Mathematica in each and every one of his classes, even CALCULUS I - my question is why?)
But this program is truly great. It's intuitive, it's easy to use, and it's powerful. More than anything, it's FUN to play with, and free for the taking. This is what math software should do, encourage exploration and experimentation rather than doing the work for you.