One of the nice things about academia is the ability to go to professional conferences. Every January, the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) hold a simultaneous national meeting, the Joint Mathematical Meetings. It’s a great chance to see a lot of good math, get together with friends you haven’t seen in awhile, and, since it’s New Orleans, eat a lot of good food. Not a bad way to spend four days!
I attended a minicourse on a Java applet called CalcPlot3D, which allows visualization and exploration for a lot of concepts in our Calculus III course. It looks really useful and like a real timesaver for teaching. The geek in me really loves stuff like this!
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