1. SageCell 2. Should we meet?

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

Two questions, posted together to reduce email volumes.

First: a few sections in the book (mainly, numerical integration and numerical solutions to ODEs) would benefit (in my opinion) from a bit of coding.

Greg, what do you think about embedding some SageCells into the book that could execute some Python code? (Or Sage, if someone knows Sage well enough. I think I know how to do this in Python.)

Second: I think this week is drop-in authoring for the weekly PreTeXt meet-up on Friday. Would it be useful for a few of us to meet for an hour or so to sort out where we're at for APEX?

[Rob Beezer]

On 7/12/21 9:30 AM, Sean Fitzpatrick wrote:
> Second: I think this week is drop-in authoring for the weekly PreTeXt meet-up on
> Friday.

Doesn't matter which week it is, you can always migrate to a Meeting Room.

[gregory...@gmail.com]

Embedding Python/Sage is probably fine within those sections. I'd want to make sure that the gap between print & HTML doesn't get too large (at least, yet), so I'd prefer to keep the number of sections where there is such cells low. 

What kind of applications are you thinking of for integration? I.e., would the point be for students to explore changes in the approximations as $n$ changes? (Instead of using only a static $n$, as done in the text?)

I'm pretty sure I'll be around on Friday, though I need to confirm with my wife. (I know that there are some things going on the day, though I *think* something like 3-4, EST, would be ok, if I have my times right.)

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

Yes - the PreTeXt workshops run 12 - 3 Pacific, so 3 - 6 Eastern.

I think you need to send Rob Beezer an email to get an account on Sococo.

On the topic of not letting HTML and print diverge: one thing we could look at is my current PDF styling, to see if you're happy with it, and if there are further adjustments we should try to make.

I think we are not too far from being able to generate PDF from PreTeXt that looks good enough to replace the original LaTeX version.

With something like Euler's method, the typical print textbook approach is to describe the algorithm, and then restrict examples/exercises to 2 or 3 iterations to keep busywork to a minimum.

But it's pretty easy to implement in Python. (I am bad at coding, but Patrick Walls at UBC has some code that he shares online.)

For numerical integration, yes, exploring the effect on changing n could be one option.

Since you can edit the code and run it live, a student could easily input different values of n to see what happens.

The nice thing about SageCell in PreTeXt is that you author both input and output, and in the print version, the output gets displayed.

(So the main difference is that students lose the ability to edit the code and re-run it.)

The other option is to use an interactive applet (e.g. GeoGebra). [In print, you get an image of the applet, and a link.]

For example, here is the applet I used last fall with my students for an activity on using midpoint and trapezoid rules: https://www.geogebra.org/m/f2effbwq