August 2008
Exercises. Our routine exercises, currently appearing as static text in our section exercise pages, will also be available through the WeBWorK online homework system. The use of WeBWorK will allow immediate feedback for the students, repeated attempts at similar problems, and automatic grading. This work is under way and should be complete by the end of 2008. As we progress through the book, each section will have separate Exercises and Problems pages, the former linked to the WeBWorK server at the Mathematical Association of America. The Problems are not necessarily harder but they require human response.
Instructor's Guide. We expect to have this in place by the end of calendar 2008, with contributions from an instructor with experience using these materials in the classroom.
Additional CAS Options. Currently the activities, checkpoints, and exercises are supported (where necessary) by Maple, Mathcad, and Mathematica worksheets. We welcome volunteers to write comparable worksheets for other systems, such as Matlab. The worksheets are quite elementary -- HTML "before" and "after" versions are available -- so this would not involve a great deal of work.
Projects. So far, we have included a few projects: Being a Pedometer in Chapter 1, The Early Spread of AIDS in Chapter 2, Air Traffic Control and Refraction in Chapter 4, and two Area projects in Chapter 7. We expect to develop several projects for each chapter – relying heavily on the materials currently in the Connected Curriculum Project library, in the laboratory manuals for the first edition, and contributed by our site testers at Hood College. (Under way and to continue through 2008-09)
Additional Material from the First Edition. There are several blocks of material from the first edition that are not included yet, but that we will add later. These include the SIR Model for the spread of epidemics (Chapter 5), Pendulum Motion (Chapter 5), Discrete Logistic Growth and Chaos (Chapter 6), and Convergence of Power Series to the Right Function (Chapter 10). (Planned for 2008-09)
New Additional Material. We will develop a section on the use (and misuse) of CASs in calculating integrals. This will replace a section in the first edition on the use of Integral Tables. In addition, we will take advantage of the hypertext capability of the online text to develop sidelines that may be used by instructors, if desired, or explored by those few ardent students who want to see more. Many of these will involve theoretical considerations. For example, there will be an introduction to the logical underpinnings of calculus (some ideas from and references to topics in real analysis) and a section on the Mean Value Theorem. (Planned for 2008-09)
Improved Graphics and Animations. With the assistance of Troy Henderson (University of Mobile), we are standardizing all of our graphics as scalable vector graphics (SVG), and we are incorporating additional animations. This work is already under way and will continue through 2008-09.