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CLIME Java Microworlds

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Software Stories
Is asking for the best software the wrong question?

 A popular request I get in my travels is for recommendations for good software. My usual answer is "Well, it depends on what you want" which is not the answer teachers like to hear. What keeps me at arms length with a vague reply like that are the words ìrecommendî or ìbestî. Itís much easier for me to talk about my favorite math programs and why I feel that way rather than make judgements about software which out of your particular context is not probably all that useful. The goal of the Software Stories column will be to provide information about software environments that mathematics educators find are special in the teaching of mathematics and why they feel that way. I made an attempt to do something like that in a previous issue of CLIME connections (Fall, 1995 V.8 N. 1) in which I offered my answer to the question above in the form of ìtop tenî software list based on a survey of teachers who were participating in a three year NSF funded technology/math project at Stevens Institute of Technology. The titles included such programs as: Geometerís Sketchpad, Interpreting Graphs, Geometry Inventor Statistics Workshop, Math Exploration Toolkit, Microworlds Math Links,Tabletop, Green Globs & Graphing Equations, Algebra, spreadsheets (like Clarisworks, Excel, Microsoft Works, Cruncher!)  Geometer's Sketchpad (see Top Ten Software). A few years earlier one of CLIMEís steering committee members Ed Dickey wrote a similar article with a better title (not influenced by David Letterman) called the Ten Packages That Should Be In Every High School Mathematics Library  (Journal Of Computers In Mathematics And Science Teaching, Spring, 1988, p. 19-35, 38.) I told Ed that I would be interested in updating this list so he sent me a list of his favorite titles with appropriate categories. They are

Dynamic Geometry: Geometerís Sketchpad
CAS:  Derive
Spreadsheet: Excel
Graph Generator:TI-Graph Link
Data Analysis:  Minitab
Lesson Delivery: Mathwright
Game:  Green Globs
Problem Solving: King's Rule
Tutorial: Boxer Series
Simulation: Jasper Series

Comment by Ed Dickey: I haven't given this nearly the amount of thought I gave the original [the 1988 article] and offer this list to you as a beginning point for discussion.  I'm more comfortable with a format that starts with a generic software type (eg, CAS) and includes a "favorite" of that type.  I encourage others to share additions to this list. 
A good place to do this is at the math.teaching.technology discussion forum (http://mathforum.org/epigone/math.teaching.technology). I would also like to include the level of the programs. So in addition to high school, I would like to add contributions to the middle and elementary levels. Also software is available in the form of Java applets and on handhelds. See Math Java Applets below.

What's happening in the world of software?
Occasional comments from the electronic pen of Sylvia Martinez

I asked Sylvia Martinez from math.com to tell us about what's going on in the world of Educational software. Here's what she had to say:

The issue that you might want to touch on is the unrealistic expectations for
school software based on consumer retail software. The retail market is more
like selling cereal than education, but for years it subsidized the creation
of school software. Now that consumer software has dropped from $49 to $19, and going lower, there is just no more money to be spent on development, and therefore no new school software. But maybe that's a good thing! When one market drives another, the driver gets to make the choices. Now, if school software has to drive its own destiny, you will see different choices being made. Of course, it's still going to go after the money... and if school insist on buying standards based test prep, that's what they will get.

By the way, there seems to be a new Zoombinis product coming out. Good news if it actually has some thought behind it, bad news if they just ripped off the characters. We will see. I'll keep you posted.
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What's the Journey of the Zoombinis about? see review

Other Resources
With thousands of websites devoted to mathematics and technology, it's sometimes overwhelming to know exactly where to start. Rather than put together an exhaustive list of websites, we've decided to highlight just a small selection of sites and put them into some kind of context. For example, the use of handhelds in math education is the theme of our annual CLIME meeting next spring iin Las Vegas. Look for a page devoted to handhelds here soon. [We are working on that now.  11.8.01]

Editor's note:
We hope that you will share some of your favorite website with us. Please post them to the discussion board or if you prefer just send them directly to me at ihor@clime.org