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Math Survival Kit Goes Electronic
Help with mathematics is just a mouse click away
BY ANDREW VOWLES
A popular math study guide written by a U of G faculty member has gone electronic. This summer saw the release of an interactive version of the Mathematics Survival Kit, a soft-cover guidebook published three years ago by Prof. Jack Weiner, Mathematics and Statistics.
Weiner wrote the new e-book along with a team from Maplesoft, a mathematics software company based in Waterloo.
The idea arose when the then high school-aged daughter of Maplesoft president James Cooper showed him a copy of Weiner's original guidebook.
“She told her dad how great the book was — clear, engaging,” says Tom Lee, a vice-president with Maplesoft. (Alex Cooper arrived at Guelph this semester to begin her studies in biology.)
Maplesoft's CEO contacted Weiner late last year to suggest writing an electronic version, which was released in mid-August.
The new version brings point-and-click technology to a homework study tool on basic math concepts written for students from early high school up. The original 230-page guidebook, published in 2003 by Thomson Nelson, has sold about 11,000 copies in Canada.
The Maplesoft version includes the book's single-page explanations of more than 100 key topics from Grade 9 through first-year university math, as well as sample questions.
Users navigate through Weiner's folksy explanations of concepts (“Match 'em up! Good for you!”), complete with colourful graphics and clickable questions and answers. Hyper-linked topics allow users to jump among related concepts. By clicking on “More to Explore,” students can pull out hundreds of additional questions to extend the topic.
Says Weiner: “This is not meant to be ‘teacher-ese.' This is meant to be friendly and approachable. Actually, I wrote it to sound like me tutoring one-on-one.”
Maplesoft has produced other electronic study guides, but Lee says this project is the first based on its most recent Maple 10 software. “The content, layout and feedback make this much richer.”
Current users of Maple 10 can buy the new Maple edition of the guide for $36. A bundled package consisting of Maple 10 software, the Maple Mathematics Survival Kit and two Maple study guides costs $169.