Math Awareness Week

This year Math Awareness Week is on "Mathematics and the Internet". In this page, we will explore some of the different ways in which the Internet is being used by students, mathematicians, and other professionals. Then we will talk about how to create home pages.

Math on the Internet

There are many repositories of mathematics-related software:

• The Math Forum: This is a comprehensive site to find a variety of materials around the Internet.
• Mathematics Archives/Archives: Mathematics Archives Collection of Software, Abstracts and Reviews.
• The Geometry Center/Archives: The Center for the Computation and Visualization of Geometric Structures.
• GAMS: A government-supported, searchable database.
• INFO-MAC Hyperarchive: INFO-MAC is a huge database of Macintosh programs. However, it is very hard to access, so MIT has established a tool for accessing this database more conveniently.

There are a variety of sites that are topic specific:

• The Chance Project: A database for statistical resources.
• Calculus Net: A web-based "textbook". Note: This site is under construction.

There are also sites that support interactive web-based mathematics-related software:

• The Geometry Center/Web Applications: This uses special purpose, graphical cgi's.
• Mathematics Archives/Interactive: Look for topics with the  icon.

Similar sites support interactive Java-based mathematics-related software:

• The Geometry Center/Java Applications: This uses the programming environmnet Java.
• Mathematics Archives/Java: Look for topics with the  icon.

Others support interactive VRML-based mathematics-related software:

• Calculus Net/VRML: This allows you to explore 3-dimensional concepts interactively.

There are many sites that have curricular resources:

• The Geometry Center/Educational Materials: This provides a starting point for finding more curricular resources.
• Mathematics Archives/Curriculum: Mathematics Archives Collection of Software, Abstracts and Reviews.
• The Math Forum: These are the main providers of mathematics education materials from the Math Forum.

There are many sites that are associated with companies and associations:

• Mathematical Association of America: This is a professional association of mathematicians, stressing undergraduate and high school teaching. They also are the sponsoring organization for our North Park Math Club.
• American Mathematical Society: This is another professional association of research mathematicians.
• Society of Industiral and Applied Mathematicians: This is another professional association of applied mathematicians. That means that they are working in academia and in actual companies solving concrete, practical problems.
• Wolfram Research, Inc.: This is the company that makes Mathematica, the program that we use in calculus, and many other upper-level math courses at North Park.

Constructing a Web Page

To construct a collection of web pages, there are a number of steps that you generally must follow:

• You much make sure that you have a folder called "public_html" in your home directory, and all of your documents should be contained in that folder (or a subfolder).
• You must also make sure that this folder and all files inside are set to allow others to read them. This means that you must select this folder, choose the Sharing command from the File menu and check the appropriate boxes.
• Your "home" page (the first page that you want others to see) should be called "index.html". It will be accessible via the URL "http://www.northpark.edu/~login-name". You may name your other pages as you like, but they should end in ".html".
• One way to get started is too find a page that you like on the Web, using the Browser component of Netscape, then hit the Edit button. When it prompts you to save the file, select your "public_html" folder. You can then use the Editor component of Netscape to personalize the page as you like.
• Note: Although the Editor generally displays the results as they will look in the Browser, it is not always accurate; periodically you should save your pages and view them in the Browser; if you had recently been looking at an earlier version of the document, you must make sure to Reload the document to see the most recent changes.
• If you wish to include graphics, you will want probably want to use the program "GraphicConverter". You can obtain this via Netscape using the URL:

ftp://login-name@www.northpark.edu/pub/network/Macintosh/Web-Publishing/

• Any graphics files should have an appropriate file extension (such as ".gif" or ".jpg"); this program will put adjust the file extension automatically. Note: When you refer to files when inserting links to pages or graphics in your own directory, you must pay close attention to capitalization and you should not include anything before the filenames.

There are a number matters of style and details about HTML that you might want to consider:

• Generally, good web pages only consist of one or two screenfuls of information. If you want to include more, break the information up into separate pages with links between them.
• Links should be well described, so that the reader has a good idea of what they will see if they follow a given link.
• Netscape provide a good collection of on-line resources discussing the creation of websites:
• • Customer Service
  • Creating your own Web pages

  While the Netscape Editor handles a lot of the HTML codes automatically, to use more advanced features (such as "frames"), you will need to edit your files directly in a text editor, such as MS Word.

• To use advanced features of the Web, such as sound, movies, etc., your browser must be equipped with the approprate "plug-ins" and "helper-applications".

The Contest

The North Park Math Club is sponsoring a contest for the best, student-created Web-site.

• Submissions are due by Wed., April 30. Simply email the URL of your top page to eerisma@northpark.edu.
• Web-sites will be judged by Eileen Erisman, Erin Osella, Scott Applequist, and Dr. Wicks.
• Sites will be judged on content (which should include some mathematicl info/links), originality, organization, and asthetics.
• A prize of a $25 gift certificate from Barnes and Noble will be delivered to the winner by the following Wednesday.
• The winning pages will be transferred into the Math Club's home page for permanent display, until next year's contest.

Have fun!

North Park University

Send questions or comments to jwicks@northpark.edu

Math Department