| Product Name: |
CALCULUS Live |
| Level: |
First Year Tertiary |
| Platform: |
Macintosh® / PC - Windows® |
| Supplied Information: |
In collaboration with Wolfram Research, Inc., developers of Mathematica, this marriage of technology and textbook for the calculus classroom takes another leap forward as the calculus textbook itself becomes an electronic tool. This CD-ROM version of both Calculus, Single Variable, Second Edition by Hughes-Hallett, Gleason, et. al., and Multivariable Calculus by McCallum,
Hughes-Hallett, Gleason, McCallum, et. al. helps calculus come alive for students. Each copy of Calculus Live runs on a limited kernel of Mathematica which is provided on the CD-ROM.
Presents the entire text in electronic form for students to use in any way they choose by either browsing through sections of the textbook or searching for topics using a sophisticated on-line interface called the Help Browser.
Contains a special limited version the Mathematica kernel, derived from the powerful Mathematica computational engine.nHelp Browser interface is designed to be easy to use and does not require students to learn how to use Mathematica itself. Built-in computational tools present students with a series of dialog boxes that guide their input and eliminate the need for up-front training with the tools.
Allows students to explore by modifying tables and graphics in the book. Simply clicking a button, students can change a function or its range of values and re-compute and display its graph in place of the textbook graph. Tables of computed values of functions can be modified by either changing the function itself or the range of values at which it is computed. Students can more fully explore the examples and tables in the text without a great deal of effort.
Provides a set of computational tools that allow students to make their own plots, compute integrals, solve systems of equations, and set up various problems as given in the textbook. These tools provide a "lab" that students can use to set up a wide variety of problems and then use the power of the computer to solve. Students will still be required to set things up properly and interpret the results.
Navigational system that allows students to work with the CD like they would a text. Includes a table of contents and an index to quickly locate topics being studied with the help of the Help Browser to bring these features to life. Table of contents lists chapters, sections, and subsections with each topic heading linked to take the student directly to that section or subsection of the book. Search feature that allows students to choose any topic from the Index and takes them to that place in the textbook. |
| Possible Use: |
This product is suitable for First Year Tertiary courses. |
| Developer/s: |
Hughes-Hallett, M. Gleason et al, Harvard University |
| Review: |
Calculus Live is a CD-ROM intended to accompany the textbook "CALCULUS" by Hughes-Hallet et al. It consists of the contents of the book plus a Mathematica kernel which enables users to alter parameters in some of the examples as well as perform a variety of calculations and produce plots. This means that an evaluation of the software entails to some extent an evaluation of the textbook. The authors explain in the preface that they have deliberately restricted the number of topics treated, relative to those in most other texts, in the interests of depth of understanding rather than breadth. Some instructors may find the lack of breadth makes the book unsuitable for their classes. There are also features of the ordering of topics which may be unattractive to some. For instance, the idea of a derivative is introduced before any discussion of limits of functions in general. On the other hand, the structure readily allows a considerable degree of choice as to the emphasis to be placed on techniques, theory and applications, and this is a convenient feature. The CD-ROM itself is easy to use and pleasant in appearance. No knowledge of Mathematica is needed to use the computational tools and the ability to see immediately the effect of changing parameters in some examples in the text makes it lively and instructive. However, I have reservations about the computational tools. These enable users to do such things as evaluate limits, definite integrals, derivatives at given points and so on. The result is given simply as a numerical value, with no indication of the method of deriving the result. The facility could be used by students to check the results of their own working, as the provided answers to odd-numbered exercises may be used. This supposes, however, that the system is reliable, and, unfortunately, there are some flaws. For example, one may ask for the calculation of limits (one-sided only) and in many instances be provided with the correct result. However, for both lim[x->0+] sin (1/x) and lim[x->0+] ln(x) the result is returned as "indeterminate". This is correct as far as it goes, of course, but one would usually want students to recognise the difference between the limiting behaviour of these two functions. A far more serious problem arises when the package gives an incorrect answer. An instance is lim[x->0-] xln(x) for which the returned answer is zero.
To sum up, the CD-ROM offers the textbook in electronic form with some additional calculating facilities which could be helpful if used with care. However, they are not so impressive as to offer an incentive to use the text unless one had chosen it on other grounds.
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|
Jennifer Hopwood, University of Western Australia, 1999 |
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| Supplier: |
Jacaranda Wiley, PO Box 1226, Milton Qld 4064 |
|
headoffice@jacwiley.com.au |
|
http://www.wiley.com/products/worldwide/jacaranda/ |
|
phone: (07) 3859 9755 |
|
fax: (07) 3859 9715 |
| Date Record Last Modified: |
15/9/99 |
