Here is my just-in-time post for back to school, Fall 2020 Edition.
Overall:
The two main things to know about the Active Calculus textbooks (Active Prelude to Calculus (APC), Active Calculus Single Variable (ACS), and Active Calculus Multivariable (ACM)) are that (a) the main landing site (https://activecalculus.org/) is always the place to find the current versions of the texts themselves (in HTML, in PDF, and in print), while (b) the best location to receive updates and communicate with other instructors using the texts is https://groups.google.com/g/active-calculus-users. If you are an instructor who is not yet a member of the active-calculus-users group, just click the link and ask to be added.
Updates for F20:
+ the HTML versions of APC and ACS have both been slightly updated to fix a small number of typographical errors. Due to the PDF being more complicated to produce, I’ve not made the changes to the PDF (and thus not the print edition). If you care about the list of small differences that now exist between HTML and PDF/Print, see these documents: APC errata, ACS errata. You may need to reload individual pages or clear your cache in order to get the updates if you’ve been already using the texts.
+ thanks to Mitch Keller and Nick Long, there’s now a chapter on vector calculus (line integrals, divergence, curl, Green’s Theorem, Stokes’ Theorem, etc.) as part of ACM: instead of the usual ACM link, use the following one instead to access this new content (along with all of the previous content) https://activecalculus.org/vector/frontmatter.html
This is a fantastic development and I’m deeply grateful to Mitch and Nick for writing this. Cheers for OER, too.
All else in APC, ACS, and ACM remains essentially the same from a year ago.
Ancillaries:
Historically, I’ve had people email me directly for ancillary materials, largely so that I have better information on who is using the texts. Going forward, I’m going to make these available to anyone who’s a member of the AC-users group.
Concurrent with this blog post, I’ve now posted most ancillary resources on the AC-users Google group. Here is what will be listed there, with direct links to them:
+ APC ancillaries: PDF workbook, print workbook on Amazon, WeBWorK .def files, link to Edfinity course
+ ACS ancillaries: PDF workbooks, print workbooks on Amazon, WeBWorK .def files, link to Edfinity course, Daily Prep Assignments, Geogebra labs (for chs 1-4), Screencasts on YouTube
+ ACM ancillaries: WeBWorK .def files, link to Edfinity course
(note: there is not yet a PDF Activities Workbook for ACM, in part due to the challenge of moveable 3D graphics)
Forthcoming:
I’m teaching from APC this fall. I’ll be working on a bunch of different things, and I hope to be able to find time to make some of those efforts public as I go. I expect that my GV colleagues and I will be creating video content, developing daily prep assignments, and adding to our WeBWorK offering for the course. Anything I have time to share I will endeavor to post on the AC-users Google group.
A wish for us all:
As the fall semester gets underway everywhere amidst the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 and considerable remote teaching and learning, I just want to say: I wish us all well. May we stay healthy and safe, may we care for our students as human beings first and as learners of mathematics second, and may we all look forward to a return to easier circumstances in which to do this work.