Reporting from Amsterdam, it's a pleasure to report on day one of the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit. Being our first Maple T.A. User Summit, we wanted to ensure attendees were not only given the opportunity to sit-in on key note presentations from various university or college professors, high school teachers and Maplesoft staff, but to also engage in active discussions with each other on how they have implemented Maple T.A. at their institution.

We started things off by hearing an encouraging talk by Maplesoft’s president and CEO Jim Cooper. Jim started things off with a question to get everyone thinking; “How will someone born today be educated in the 2030s?” From there, we heard about Maplesoft’s vision on education, learning, and questions we have to ask ourselves today to be prepared for the future.

Up next was Louise Krmpotic, Director of Business Development. Louise discussed content and Maple T.A. This included an overview of our content team operations, what content is currently available today, and how users can engage themselves in the Maple T.A. community and get involved in sharing their own content with other users.

We then heard our first keynote presentation by Professor Steve Furino and Rachael Vanbruggen of the University of Waterloo.  We were provided with a brief history of the University of Waterloo and mathematics as well as their ever expanding initiative in brining math courses into an online environment both at the university level and high school level. We then heard in detail of how Maplesoft technologies have been implemented in various math courses and the successes and challenges of creating their own content.

I (Jonny Zivku, Product Manager of Maple T.A.) then delivered a presentation on all the new features in Maple T.A. 10. I won’t get into detail about the new features in this post, but if you’d like to read more about it, check out my previous post from a few weeks ago.

Meta Keijzer-de Ruijter of TU Delft University then took the floor and delivered our second keynote presentation. She discussed the history of Delft as well as the new initiative, the Delft Extension School. She then went on to discuss Delft’s experiences with implementing Maple T.A. at their campus and maintaining it since 2007 as well as how they’ve managed to maintain their academic integrity while using online tools. We also had the opportunity of seeing several examples of some of their excellent questions they’ve created which included adaptive, math apps, algorithms, maple-graded and more.

After a delicious lunch break, Paul DeMarco from Maplesoft, Director of Maple and Maple T.A. Development, talked about the future of testing and assessment. Paul went over various topics and how we envision them changing which included partial marks, skills assessment, learning, feedback, and content.

Jonathan Kress from the University of New South Wales was up next and discussed their experiences with implementing Maple T.A. into their mathematics and statistics courses at a first year, second year, and higher level of learning. He then discussed the various scenarios for how Maple T.A. is deployed which included both formative and summative testing. Moving on, we then were briefed on Maple T.A. use from a student's perspective and an overview of various pieces of content.

We then moved on to an engaging panel discussion which featured Grahame Smart, math and e-learning consultant, Professor Marina Marchisio of the University of Turin and Dr. Alice Barana also from the University of Turin. Grahame first started things off by discussing how he doubled the pass rates in his prevoius high school using investigative and interactive learning with Maple T.A. Marina and Dr. Barana then gave us a brief overview of Maple T.A. at the University of Turin and their exciting PP&S project. The panel then answered various questions from the audience

William Rybolt of Babson College then closed off the presentations with a discussion about how his school has been a long time user of EDU, Maple T.A.’s predecessor.  Going from ungraded web pages, web forms, and Excel, we heard about Babson’s attempts at converting paper-based assignments into an online format until 2003 when they decided to adopt EDU.

To end the day, we enjoyed a nice cruise on the canals of Amsterdam while enjoying a delicious three course meal. Not a bad way to end the day!

Jonny
Maplesoft Product Manager, Maple T.A.

Reporting from Amsterdam, it's a pleasure to report on day one of the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit. Being our first Maple T.A. User Summit, we wanted to ensure attendees were not only given the opportunity to sit-in on key note presentations from various university or college professors, high school teachers and Maplesoft staff, but to also engage in active discussions with each other on how they have implemented Maple T.A. at their institution.

We started things off by hearing an encouraging talk by Maplesoft’s president and CEO Jim Cooper. Jim started things off with a question to get everyone thinking; “How will someone born today be educated in the 2030s?” From there, we heard about Maplesoft’s vision on education, learning, and questions we have to ask ourselves today to be prepared for the future.

Up next was Louise Krmpotic, Director of Business Development. Louise discussed content and Maple T.A. This included an overview of our content team operations, what content is currently available today, and how users can engage themselves in the Maple T.A. community and get involved in sharing their own content with other users.

We then heard our first keynote presentation by Professor Steve Furino and Rachael Vanbruggen of the University of Waterloo.  We were provided with a brief history of the University of Waterloo and mathematics as well as their ever expanding initiative in brining math courses into an online environment both at the university level and high school level. We then heard in detail of how Maplesoft technologies have been implemented in various math courses and the successes and challenges of creating their own content.

I (Jonny Zivku, Product Manager of Maple T.A.) then delivered a presentation on all the new features in Maple T.A. 10. I won’t get into detail about the new features in this post, but if you’d like to read more about it, check out my previous post from a few weeks ago.

Meta Keijzer-de Ruijter of TU Delft University then took the floor and delivered our second keynote presentation. She discussed the history of Delft as well as the new initiative, the Delft Extension School. She then went on to discuss Delft’s experiences with implementing Maple T.A. at their campus and maintaining it since 2007 as well as how they’ve managed to maintain their academic integrity while using online tools. We also had the opportunity of seeing several examples of some of their excellent questions they’ve created which included adaptive, math apps, algorithms, maple-graded and more.

After a delicious lunch break, Paul DeMarco from Maplesoft, Director of Maple and Maple T.A. Development, talked about the future of testing and assessment. Paul went over various topics and how we envision them changing which included partial marks, skills assessment, learning, feedback, and content.

Jonathan Kress from the University of New South Wales was up next and discussed their experiences with implementing Maple T.A. into their mathematics and statistics courses at a first year, second year, and higher level of learning. He then discussed the various scenarios for how Maple T.A. is deployed which included both formative and summative testing. Moving on, we then were briefed on Maple T.A. use from a student's perspective and an overview of various pieces of content.

We then moved on to an engaging panel discussion which featured Grahame Smart, math and e-learning consultant, Professor Marina Marchisio of the University of Turin and Dr. Alice Barana also from the University of Turin. Grahame first started things off by discussing how he doubled the pass rates in his prevoius high school using investigative and interactive learning with Maple T.A. Marina and Dr. Barana then gave us a brief overview of Maple T.A. at the University of Turin and their exciting PP&S project. The panel then answered various questions from the audience

William Rybolt of Babson College then closed off the presentations with a discussion about how his school has been a long time user of EDU, Maple T.A.’s predecessor.  Going from ungraded web pages, web forms, and Excel, we heard about Babson’s attempts at converting paper-based assignments into an online format until 2003 when they decided to adopt EDU.

To end the day, we enjoyed a nice cruise on the canals of Amsterdam while enjoying a delicious three course meal. Not a bad way to end the day!

Jonny
Maplesoft Product Manager, Maple T.A.

Reporting from Amsterdam, it's a pleasure to report on day one of the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit. Being our first Maple T.A. User Summit, we wanted to ensure attendees were not only given the opportunity to sit-in on key note presentations from various university or college professors, high school teachers and Maplesoft staff, but to also engage in active discussions with each other on how they have implemented Maple T.A. at their institution.

We started things off by hearing an encouraging talk by Maplesoft’s president and CEO Jim Cooper. Jim started things off with a question to get everyone thinking; “How will someone born today be educated in the 2030s?” From there, we heard about Maplesoft’s vision on education, learning, and questions we have to ask ourselves today to be prepared for the future.

Up next was Louise Krmpotic, Director of Business Development. Louise discussed content and Maple T.A. This included an overview of our content team operations, what content is currently available today, and how users can engage themselves in the Maple T.A. community and get involved in sharing their own content with other users.

We then heard our first keynote presentation by Professor Steve Furino and Rachael Vanbruggen of the University of Waterloo.  We were provided with a brief history of the University of Waterloo and mathematics as well as their ever expanding initiative in brining math courses into an online environment both at the university level and high school level. We then heard in detail of how Maplesoft technologies have been implemented in various math courses and the successes and challenges of creating their own content.

I (Jonny Zivku, Product Manager of Maple T.A.) then delivered a presentation on all the new features in Maple T.A. 10. I won’t get into detail about the new features in this post, but if you’d like to read more about it, check out my previous post from a few weeks ago.

Meta Keijzer-de Ruijter of TU Delft University then took the floor and delivered our second keynote presentation. She discussed the history of Delft as well as the new initiative, the Delft Extension School. She then went on to discuss Delft’s experiences with implementing Maple T.A. at their campus and maintaining it since 2007 as well as how they’ve managed to maintain their academic integrity while using online tools. We also had the opportunity of seeing several examples of some of their excellent questions they’ve created which included adaptive, math apps, algorithms, maple-graded and more.

After a delicious lunch break, Paul DeMarco from Maplesoft, Director of Maple and Maple T.A. Development, talked about the future of testing and assessment. Paul went over various topics and how we envision them changing which included partial marks, skills assessment, learning, feedback, and content.

Jonathan Kress from the University of New South Wales was up next and discussed their experiences with implementing Maple T.A. into their mathematics and statistics courses at a first year, second year, and higher level of learning. He then discussed the various scenarios for how Maple T.A. is deployed which included both formative and summative testing. Moving on, we then were briefed on Maple T.A. use from a student's perspective and an overview of various pieces of content.

We then moved on to an engaging panel discussion which featured Grahame Smart, math and e-learning consultant, Professor Marina Marchisio of the University of Turin and Dr. Alice Barana also from the University of Turin. Grahame first started things off by discussing how he doubled the pass rates in his prevoius high school using investigative and interactive learning with Maple T.A. Marina and Dr. Barana then gave us a brief overview of Maple T.A. at the University of Turin and their exciting PP&S project. The panel then answered various questions from the audience

William Rybolt of Babson College then closed off the presentations with a discussion about how his school has been a long time user of EDU, Maple T.A.’s predecessor.  Going from ungraded web pages, web forms, and Excel, we heard about Babson’s attempts at converting paper-based assignments into an online format until 2003 when they decided to adopt EDU.

To end the day, we enjoyed a nice cruise on the canals of Amsterdam while enjoying a delicious three course meal. Not a bad way to end the day!

Jonny
Maplesoft Product Manager, Maple T.A.

We have just released a new version of MapleSim.

MapleSim 7 makes it substantially easier to explore and validate designs, create and manage libraries of custom components, and use your MapleSim models with other tools. It includes:

• Easy model investigation. A new Results Manager gives you greater flexibility when it comes to investigating your simulation results, including the ability to compare simulation runs on the same axes, instantly plot both probed and unprobed variables, and easily create custom plots.
• Convenient library creation. With MapleSim 7, it is significantly easier to create, manage, and share libraries of custom components.
• Improved Modelica support. MapleSim 7 expands the support of the Modelica language so that more Modelica definitions can be used directly inside MapleSim.

We have also updated and expanded the MapleSim 7 family of add-on products:

• The new MapleSim Battery Library, which is available as a separate add-on, allows you to incorporate physics-based predictive models of battery cells into your system models so you can take battery behavior into account early in the design process. 
• The MapleSim Connector for FMI, which allows engineers to share very efficient, high-fidelity models created in MapleSim with other modeling tools, has been expanded to support more export formats for co-simulation and model exchange.

See What’s New in MapleSim 7 for more information about these and other improvements in MapleSim.

eithne

As previously announced, Maplesoft will be hosting  the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit this October 22 – 24 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You might have heard about the launch of Maple T.A. 10. The User Summit in Amsterdam is a perfect opportunity to get to know more, see the new features in action, and meet Maple T.A. users from around the world.

We are happy to announce that the schedule has been finalized! The event will feature keynote and user presentations by prominent educators from around the world, first-hand discussions by Maplesoft representatives, exciting social events, and training sessions.

As you can see, this event has shaped up to be a very exciting summit for Maple T.A. users. After seeing this schedule you may be wondering why you didn’t sign-up – don’t worry, it’s not too late! To register, please visit our website: https://webstore.maplesoft.com/taconference/register.aspx

I hope to see you there!

Jonny
Maplesoft Product Manager, Maple T.A.

As previously announced, Maplesoft will be hosting  the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit this October 22 – 24 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You might have heard about the launch of Maple T.A. 10. The User Summit in Amsterdam is a perfect opportunity to get to know more, see the new features in action, and meet Maple T.A. users from around the world.

We are happy to announce that the schedule has been finalized! The event will feature keynote and user presentations by prominent educators from around the world, first-hand discussions by Maplesoft representatives, exciting social events, and training sessions.

As you can see, this event has shaped up to be a very exciting summit for Maple T.A. users. After seeing this schedule you may be wondering why you didn’t sign-up – don’t worry, it’s not too late! To register, please visit our website: https://webstore.maplesoft.com/taconference/register.aspx

I hope to see you there!

Jonny
Maplesoft Product Manager, Maple T.A.

After lots of hard work, vast amounts of testing, and enormous anticipation, Maple T.A. 10 is now available! Maple T.A. 10 is by far our biggest release to date - and we’re not just saying that. When we compare the list of new features and improvements in Maple T.A. 10 with that of previous releases, it’s clear that Maple T.A. 10 has the largest feature set and improvements to date.

After lots of hard work, vast amounts of testing, and enormous anticipation, Maple T.A. 10 is now available! Maple T.A. 10 is by far our biggest release to date - and we’re not just saying that. When we compare the list of new features and improvements in Maple T.A. 10 with that of previous releases, it’s clear that Maple T.A. 10 has the largest feature set and improvements to date.

Maplesoft regularly hosts live webinars on a variety of topics. Below you will find details on an upcoming webinar we think may be of interest to the MaplePrimes community.  For the complete list of upcoming webinars, visit our website.

Hollywood Math 2

In this second installment of the Hollywood Math webinar series, we will present some more examples of mathematics being used in Hollywood films and popular hit TV series. For instance, have you wondered how Ben Campbell solved his professor’s challenge so easily in the movie “21”? Or about the details of the Nash equilibrium that John Nash first developed in a “A Beautiful Mind”? We’ve got the answers! These relevant, and exciting examples can be used as material to engage your students with examples familiar to them, or you can just attend the webinar for its entertainment value.

Anyone with an interest in mathematics, especially high school and early college math educators, will be both entertained and informed by attending this webinar. At the end of the webinar you’ll be given an opportunity to download an application containing all of the examples that we demonstrate.

To join us for the live presentation, please click here to register.

If you missed the first webinar in this two part series, you can view the 'Hollywood Math' recording on our website.

We have issued an update to correct a problem a small number of Mac and 64-bit Linux users have experienced when doing certain types of floating point computations on very recent hardware (such as this report on MaplePrimes: http://www.mapleprimes.com/questions/201815-Problem-Loading-MKL-In-Maple-18). When the problem occurs, instead of giving the result, Maple issues a “lost kernel connection” error message and must be restarted.

While this issue does not occur on most computers, we recommend that all Maple 18 customers running on Mac or 64-bit Linux install this update to ensure they do not encounter this problem. This update can be safely applied to any Mac or 64-bit Linux computer. Windows and 32-bit Linux users do not need, and cannot install, this update.

To get this update, you can use Tools>Check for Updates from within Maple, or visit Maple 18.01a Downloads.

eithne

Announcing the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit

Maplesoft will be hosting the 2014 Maple T.A. User Summit this October 22-24 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This conference discusses important trends in education, how technology is changing, and what all this means for educators and students. This is an opportunity for Maple T.A. users to learn first-hand how Maple T.A. is transforming testing and assessment, and non-users can also benefit by learning about current and future trends in online education.

Conference highlights include:

• Expert advice from long term users on how they’re using Maple T.A.
• Comprehensive hands-on Maple T.A. training
• Demonstration of new features in Maple T.A., and where the technology is heading
• Social events with Maplesoft staff and other educators from around the world

We invite users who are using Maple T.A. in an innovative way in their classroom to submit a presentation proposal by July 15th, 2014. For details, please visit: https://webstore.maplesoft.com/taconference/MapleTA_Summit_CFP.pdf

For more details, preliminary agenda, and to register, please visit our website: https://webstore.maplesoft.com/taconference/  

Jonny
Maplesoft Product Manager, Maple T.A.

Maplesoft regularly hosts live webinars on a variety of topics. Below you will find details on some upcoming webinars we think may be of interest to the MaplePrimes community.  For the complete list of upcoming webinars, visit our website.

Bring Statistics Education to Life!

This exciting new webinar will demonstrate some of the ways that educators can take advantage of Maple’s symbolic and numeric approach for statistics education. Examples will include basic statistics theory including descriptive statistics such as measures of central tendency and spread, hypothesis testing, as well as discrete and continuous random variables.

Many examples presented in this webinar will be taken from the new Student Statistics package that was introduced in Maple 18. The Student Statistics was designed with classroom use in mind, and features detailed explanations and instructions, interactive demonstrations, and visualizations, all of which are great learning tools for teaching a course involving probability and statistics.

To join us for the live presentation, please click here to register.

Symbolic Computing for Engineering

As engineering applications become more complex, it is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy the often-conflicting project constraints using traditional tools. As a result, we’ve found there is a growing interest within the engineering community for tools that make engineering calculations transparent and capture not just results but also the knowledge and analysis used throughout the engineering workflow. Engineering organizations are achieving this goal by making symbolic techniques an integral part of their tool set.

In this webinar, Laurent Bernardin will demonstrate how to enhance the early-stage design phase by making mathematical computations explicit and transparent, and then integrating the results into an existing tool chain.

To join us for the live presentation, please click here to register.

We have just released an all-new, second edition of the Calculus Study Guide.

This guide has been completely rewritten and greatly expanded and to take full advantage of Maple’s Clickable Math approach.  It covers all of Calculus I and Calculus II and has over 450 worked examples, the vast majority of which are solved using interactive, Clickable Math techniques. 

Not only is this guide useful for students learning calculus, but it can also serve as a guide for instructors interested in pursuing a syntax-free approach to using Maple in their teaching.

See Clickable Calculus Study Guide for more information.  For even more information, you could also attend a live webinar about the new study guide next Wednesday.

eithne

Maplesoft regularly hosts live webinars on a variety of topics. Below you will find details on some upcoming webinars we think may be of interest to the MaplePrimes community.  For the complete list of upcoming webinars, visit our website.

Hollywood Math (with more new examples!)

Over its storied and intriguing history, Hollywood has entertained us with many mathematical moments in film. John Nash in “A Beautiful Mind,” the brilliant janitor in “Good Will Hunting,” the number theory genius in “Pi,” and even Abbott and Costello are just a few of the Hollywood “mathematicians” that come to mind.

Although the widespread presentation of mathematics on the silver screen is not always entirely accurate, it does serve as a great introduction to the study of mathematics in general. During this webinar Maplesoft will present a number of examples of mathematics in film. See relevant, exciting examples that you can use to engage your students.At the end of the webinar you’ll be given an opportunity to download an application containing all of the Hollywood examples that we demonstrate.

To join us for the live presentation, please click here to register.

Applications of Symbolic Computation in Control Design

You may already use Maple and/or MapleSim within your organization to solve various problems, but did you know that they have capabilities for control design as well? In one of our upcoming featured webinars for this month, we will explore the Control Design toolbox including the ability to extract symbolic equations of plant models, perform symbolic linearization, design symbolic controllers, and generate very fast code for HIL testing.

The following examples will be demonstrated:

• PID Control

• LQR, Kalman filter design

• Gain scheduling

• Feedback linearization

To join us for the live presentation, please click here to register.

Updates are now available for both Maple 18 and MapleSim 6.4.

Maple 18.01 includes a variety of enhancements, including:

• Significantly enhanced  efficiency for many  numerical linear algebra computations
• New keyboard shortcuts for “Execute All” ([Ctrl or Cmd]+[Shift]+[Enter]) and for entering slideshow mode ([F11] or [Cmd]+[F11])
• Improved export of 2-D plots
• PDF export improvements for documents that include  code edit regions
• Enhancements to the limit command

 To get this update, you can use Tools>Check for Updates from within Maple, or visit Maple 18.01 Downloads.

MapleSim 6.4.01 includes:

• Improvements to the templates for creating custom components using discrete state space and discrete transfer function descriptions
• Improved handling of variable names that include both symbols and numbers
• UTF-8 filename support
• Improved backwards compatibility of the Parameter Inspector with older models

In MapleSim, use  Help>Check for Updates or visit MapleSim 6.4.01 Update. For best performance, we recommend that you run MapleSim 6.4.01 with Maple 18.01.

eithne