Tag Archives: technology

Math with all the feels

The following is a guest post from David Austin. David is Professor of Mathematics at Grand Valley State University, author of the free OER text Understanding Linear Algebra, chair of the American Institute of Mathematics’ Open Textbook Initiative Editorial Board, … Continue reading

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More on Active Calculus in Runestone

As noted in an earlier post, at Mathfest in Tampa, Chrissy Safranski and I led a minicourse on teaching Active Calculus and using Runestone. We had a great time doing that and here I want to share a few updates … Continue reading

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Active Calculus news and updates for Fall 2023

The summer of 2023 has been an exciting time of new developments and opportunities related to Active Calculus. In this post I’ll offer a short overview of the biggest items, and then offer more details in subsequent posts. View this … Continue reading

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PreTeXt, Runestone, and the exciting future of open textbooks

In late June, I was fortunate to attend a week-long UTMOST workshop in Ann Arbor that brought together education researchers, PreTeXt developers, Runestone developers, and textbook authors. The newest part to me was learning more about Runestone. Runestone Academy was … Continue reading

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reminder: Active Calculus YouTube playlists

My GVSU colleagues have developed extensive video content to support all 8 chapters of Active Calculus.  Each screencast is enumerated with the section number that aligns with the text.  At GV, our Calculus 1 is MTH 201, which corresponds to … Continue reading

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PreTeXt & the Future of Textbooks

Rob Beezer’s free, open authoring platform PreTeXt is what enables the fantastic HTML output for Active Calculus and so many other free, open textbooks. As part of my work with the PreTeXt Advocacy Group (Sally Koutsoliotas, Jennifer Nordstrom, Bruce Yoshiwara, … Continue reading

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An argument for print textbooks

Here’s an interesting article regarding the effect of electronic vs print textbooks on student learning when reading for understanding: https://www.businessinsider.com/students-learning-education-print-textbooks-screens-study-2017-10. “Our work has revealed a significant discrepancy. Students said they preferred and performed better when reading on screens. But their … Continue reading

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Active Calculus and Edfinity: an alternative to WeBWorK

Many instructors use online homework systems with their students.  This approach provides accountability for students, immediate feedback and multiple attempts on their work, and simple grading for instructors.  While I’m always glad to share WeBWorK .def files with users who … Continue reading

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How to Use Active Calculus

I added new sections to the preface of Active Calculus this year, including “Students! Read This!” and “Instructors: Read This!”  My main goal in writing these was to help better ensure that users of the text are aware of some … Continue reading

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Active Calculus 2019 updates

I’m excited to share several important updates: 1. new landing page at https://activecalculus.org 2. updated versions of Active Calculus (single variable, 2018 edition) in HTML, PDF, and print (with updated activities workbooks [1-4], [5-8], too) 3. updated version of Active Prelude … Continue reading

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