This is a condensed html version of a presentation made at the UWMC Math Awareness Week Program on April 23, 1997.
Mathematics on the Internet
with Emphasis on Education
M. Maheswaran, Department of Mathematics, UWMC
Introduction
The theme of the 1997 Mathematics Awareness Program is Mathematics and the Internet. The scope of this theme is very broad. Although the Internet is currently dominted by the World Wide Web, it includes several other other protocols also. In this presentation, I shall consider the following protocols: (a) e-mail and list servers, (b) Gopher, , (c) USENET News and Discussion Groups, (d) FTP and (e) the World Wide Web. I shall give a brief description of how each of these protocols is being used in mathematics and provide some examples with special emphasis on education. There are other protocols that are being used on the Internet such as WAIS. I shall not discuss these here. Another important aspect of the theme is the use of mathematics in the development and maintenance of the various protocols of the Internet. I shall not attempt to deal with this aspect of the theme. You will find useful material on this in the theme essay by Paul Davis.
I shall also briefly discuss the concepts of Virtual Textbooks, Virtual Classrooms, Virtual Libraries and Virtual Universities.
In addititon to the use of e-mail for personal communication between mathematicians, an important application of e-mail protocol is the list server. Thr process here is one where a group of interested persons subscribe to a mailing list and contributions from members are e-mailed to all members of the group. A listing of the some of the areas of mathematics that have list servers will be found in the Mathematics Section of TILE.NET/LISTS.
Another use of e-mail in mathematics is the Dr. Math feature, where K-12 students can send in questions on mathematics, during the academic year, via e-mail and receive replies. There are over 100 "doctors" from all over the globe who help out with this. This feature is coordinated by Swarthmore College and they have set up an archive called the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Page, which contains all the useful questions and answers.
In fact, when I first published the Catalog of Mathematics Resources on WWW and the Internet, in 1994, I received many e-mail messages from many parts of the world with questions in math, which I did answer.
Prior to the explosion of the World Wide Web, Gopher was the most popular protocol for dissemination of information on the Internet. Unfortunately, due to the fact that gopher documents had to be in plain text format, the usefulness of Gopher was limited. Documents that could not be displayed in plain text form and those with graphics had to be coded for downloading, decoding and viewing with appropriate software. However, Gopher was an extremely useful precursor to WWW and is still used widely. All WWW browsers are capable of handling gopher documents. In the Catalog of Mathematics Resources, I have included a section with links to gopher servers and materials. Currently, most gopher servers are being discontinued and replaced by WWW servers so that most of the entries this section may soon be obsolete.
USENET news is another useful Internet protocol that is widely used. This protocol permits users to post news, questions and answers, opinions, etc. to a news server. The subject areas for discussion groups cover a very wide range. In the Mathematics Discussion Groups section of theCatalog of Mathematics Resources, I have listed the news/discussion groups in mathematics. Recently, several web pages have been constructed to provide access to USENET news via the web. One useful example is of this is FeedME.org, which provides free access.
File Transfer Protocol is used for transferring files from one computer location to another via the Internet. In the case of mathematics, it is used widely to store and retrieve course materials and software. The materials are placed on an FTP Server and files are downloaded using an FTP client software package. All WWW browsers have FTP clients built in to them so that we may use such a browser instead of setting up a dedicated FTP client. An example of a mathematics FTP site that offers course materials is CTI Mathematics: FTP server at the University of Birmingham, UK, which provides an electronic distribution service for courseware materials. There are several FTP servers that carry mathematics software. A directory of such servers can be found in the sofware archives page at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
As we are all aware, the amount of materials in mathematics on the World Wide Web keeps growing exponentially. In the Catalog of Mathematics Resources on WWW and the Internet I have provided links to various mathematics resources sorted by different subject areas. In this presentation, I shall use examples from mathematics education. We shall take a tour of some useful and interesting pages on the web. The following websites have valuable information for those interested in mathematics education:
- The Math Forum -- A virtual center for math education from Swarthmore College.
- The Math Archives -- From the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
- Mathematics, Science and Technology Education -- from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Eric's Treasure Trove of Mathematics -- an extensive encyclopedia/dictionary of mathematics.
- Math-on-Web -- an interactive math utilities package.
- VRML Resources in Mathematics -- a list of links from the San Diego Supercomputing Center.
Virtual Textbooks, Virtual Classrooms, Virtual Libraries and Virtual Universities
Some important concepts that will have tremendous impact on the future of education are Virtual Textbooks, Virtual Classrooms, Virtual Libraries and Virtual Universities. In fact, we may think of WWW as an immense Virtual Library, or Learning Resource. These will be accessed via WWW and the Internet. Students will be able to interact with machines as well as humans. In the preceding section we saw an interactive feature in Math-on-Web. With the development of Netscape's Cool Talk, Microsoft's NetMeeting and Intel's Video Phone students will be able to interact with teachers and other students. I shall not pursue this any further in this presentation. I shall consider the following examples of a virtual textbook and a virtual university:
1. Notes and Examples for a Virtual Textbook of College Algebra by M. Maheswaran. This book is still under construction.
2. Magellan University - a virtual university.
© 1997 M. Maheswaran , UWMC, 518 South 7th Avenue, Wausau, 54401-5396