Draft of Better Practices Paper

From Better Practices

[edit] Math on the Web: Better Practices

[edit] Introduction

• What is the best way to present math on web pages?
• What are good technologies for creating mathematical applets?
• What are good technologies for creating mathematical applets?

These questions and more were the focus of a week-long workshop held at the Mathematical Association of America's Carriage House Conference Center during the week of July 16-20, 2007. Twenty mathematics curriculum developers were invited to discuss these and other questions, to find out about new developments in software tools, and to work on development projects with help from fellow participants. As the workshop progressed, the participants created a wiki supporting the workshop and its goals. This paper reports on the discussions in the workshop and on the wiki.

The organizers of the workshop – Doug Ensley, Troy Henderson, Lang Moore, Kyle Siegrist, David Smith, and Frank Wattenberg – originally thought the title of the workshop should be "Best Practices for Math on the Web." However, a little discussion soon demonstrated that the organizers expertise could not support the arrogance of the title. Accordingly, the "Best" was changed to "Better" in the title of the workshop and in the title of the wiki.

The outline of the paper is presented below. The sections of the paper are independent and, so, may be read in any order

[edit] Contents

• Introduction

• Presenting Math on the Web
  • MathML
  • jsMath
  • LaTeX/PDF
• Graphics Fundamentals
  • Raster Graphics
  • Vector Graphics
• Mathematical Graphics on the Web
  • MetaPost
  • Scalable Vector Graphics
  • 3D-Interactive Graphics
• Flash CS3 As a Tool for Mathematical Applets
• Osslets: Mathematical Applets To Use and Revise
• About the Workshop