Tuning the Eee PC for maths

improved maths

I've been adding some useful maths programs to the Eee PC, and adding icons for them to the Maths/ Learn tab.

The scientific calculator is jscicalc, which works exactly like the calculators that pupils use. Maxima and Geogebra should be familiar to you from previous posts of mine.

Comments

  1. Tom2 February 2008 at 22:47

    Have you been able to get some 3D math representations on this tool? (screen resolution, speed...)
    Thanks to let us know!

    ReplyDelete
  2. jonesieboy3 February 2008 at 10:04

    Hi Tom. Could you give me an example of what you you are thinking about. Maxima does 3D graphing, but I'm guessing that's not what you mean.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tess Watson3 February 2008 at 11:13

    Thanks for the updates Jonsie!

    Tess :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. mick29 March 2008 at 00:47

    Hi.
    I've been trying to get maxima on my eee pc but it's my first Linux machine. Is there a relatively easy way for the Linux-challenged to do it?

    many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. jonesieboy7 April 2008 at 12:54

    Hi Mick - apologies for the slow response. I've been away snowboarding in Whistler.

    I don't have the EeePC any more, so I can't give you exact details, but there are basically three steps:

    1. Fire up a terminal screen (ctrl alt t if I remember rightly)

    2. Add some extra repositories by editing the /etc/apt/sources.list file - google will bring up some howtos on this

    3. type sudo apt-get install maxima in the terminal

    Hope this works for you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a comment

Popular posts from this blog

ActiVote Walkthrough Part 1

Image
At my visit to Musselburgh Grammar this morning, I spoke to some of the maths department about using Activote. They were enthusiastic about the potential of the technology, but said something like "it looks easy as you stand there and explain it, but we'll forget everything you've said by the time we next come to use it".

So.... to provide a bit of backup, here's a step by step guide to using Activote with your class.

The following assumes that the voting pads have been registered with your PC. If not, chase up IT!
Setting up the User Database
You'll want your pupil names to be stored in the system, so that their names appear at the top of the screen when you run a vote. Here's how....

In East Lothian, we have a problem - we don't have write-access to the place on the C drive where the user database is stored! To get around this, we need to copy the default user database to somewhere that is writeable, then tell ACTIVStudio that we've done so:

In ACTIVS…
Read more

Someone is looking for the Catburgers!

I was most surprised today to discover that the top search phrase leading people to this blog over the last few weeks has been "the catburgers." This is the name of the indie band I was in back in the late '80s (I sang and played guitar).

I can't imagine who might be looking for my old band, unless it is some kids in North Berwick who heard about the band through my son.

Whoever it might be, I'll take advantage of this opportunity to post up some mp3s from the good old days, both recorded in 1987.  I just realised that's 20 years ago!  Time for a reunion tour of the states... anyway here are "Children's TV" and "First Day of Spring" for your entertainment:

[audio:childrens-tv.mp3]

[audio:first-day-of-spring.mp3]

After all, you have to keep your visitors happy don't you?
Read more

Glow mentor meeting

East Lothian Glow mentors met today at The Gothenburg in PrestonPans - here's the agenda.

I missed the afternoon (visiting Ross High School), but thoroughly enjoyed the morning.

Karen Robertson began the morning with an overview of where we are and where we are going.

Alan Yeoman then spoke to us about the training programme for Glow mentors, and I was very impressed by what he had to say. Whilst the Glow launch at SETT was a disappointment, with the feeling that it was underprepared, Alan's presentation today showed that they have been doing some serious thinking about how to prepare us for our roles as mentors.

The residential training at Stirling may include sessions on ACfE and the theory of co-coaching, for example. I had been concerned that the training would focus upon the basics of the use of the Glow portal tools. In fact, as Alan said, most teachers won't need any training to use the tools - if you can use a web browser, you've already got most of the te…
Read more