Which means that we won’t get any “math, not computation!” courses/textbooks until they can find a taker.
My statistics courses are getting close to this. We use R for almost all the computations (even in quizzes, although not the final exam unfortunately), about a third of each lecture is spent looking at R code/output. This is not at all perfect though, since most people have had no experience programming a computer or even interacting with one via a line-based interpreter.
Obviously, we’d have to use free stuff… Sage instead of Mathematica, for instance. I don’t know if there’s a workable open-source alternative to CDF, but that’s really a secondary concern at this point. The main concern is… courses/textbooks.
This free lin-alg textbook references Sage and seems to encourage its use. Also, Sage workbooks files are similar-ish to CDF, in that they can contain interactive elements.
Are there enough (a) mathematically literate LWers with (b) tons of free time who (c) think computer-based math education is a good idea and (d) are willing to work for free?
In other words, can LW form a modern-day Nicolas Bourbaki group?
There are many other groups who would be more than qualified and possibly interested: e.g. Hacker News, some sections of Reddit, the Khan Academy.
My statistics courses are getting close to this. We use R for almost all the computations (even in quizzes, although not the final exam unfortunately), about a third of each lecture is spent looking at R code/output. This is not at all perfect though, since most people have had no experience programming a computer or even interacting with one via a line-based interpreter.
This free lin-alg textbook references Sage and seems to encourage its use. Also, Sage workbooks files are similar-ish to CDF, in that they can contain interactive elements.
There are many other groups who would be more than qualified and possibly interested: e.g. Hacker News, some sections of Reddit, the Khan Academy.