Search

Search Results

• Using the computer to visualise graph-oriented problems

  15-32

  Erika Gyöngyösi

  Views:

  24

  The computer, if used more effectively, could bring advances that would improve mathematical education dramatically, not least with its ability to calculate quickly and display moving graphics. There is a gap between research results of the enthusiastic innovators in the field of information technology and the current weak integration of the use of computers into mathematics teaching.
  This paper examines what exactly the real potentials of using some mathematics computer software are to support mathematics teaching and learning in graph-oriented problems, more specifically we try to estimate the value added impact of computer use in the mathematics learning process.
  While electronic computation has been used by mathematicians for five decades, it has been in the hands of teachers and learners for at most three decades but the real breakthrough of decentralised and personalised micro-computer-based computing has been widely available for less than two decades. And it is the latter facility that has brought the greatest promise for computers in mathematics education. That computational aids overall do a better job of holding students' mathematical interest and challenging them to use their intellectual power to mathematical achievement than do traditional static media is unquestionable. The real question needing investigation concerns the circumstances where each is appropriate.
  A case study enabled a specification of advantages and obstacles of using computers in graph-oriented questions. Individual students' interviews revealed two less able students' reactions, difficulties and misinterpretations while using computers in mathematics learning.
  Among research outcomes is that the mathematical achievement of the two students observed improved and this makes teaching with computers an overriding priority for each defined teaching method.
  This paper may not have been realised without the valuable help of the Hungarian Eötvös State Grant.

• Hungarian mathematicians in the twentieth century: Ottó Varga (1909–1969)

  109-120

  Tünde Kántor

  Views:

  23

  In this article we want to present life and work of Ottó Varga on occasion of the centenary of his birth. He was an outstanding geometer, the head of the Mathematical Seminar / Department (1942-1959) and the first dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Debrecen (Hungary).
  His area of research was differential geometry. The Debrecen school of differential geometry emerged due his activity. He wrote 57 papers.

• Some logical issues in discrete mathematics and algorithmic thinking

  243-258

  Viviane Durand-Guerrier

  Views:

  93

  The role of logic in mathematics education has been widely discussed from the seventies and eighties during the “modern maths period” till now, and remains still a rather controversial issue in the international community. Nevertheless, the relevance of discrete mathematics and algorithmic thinking for the development of heuristic and logical competences is both one of the main points of the program of Tamás Varga, and of some didactic teams in France. In this paper, we first present the semantic perspective in mathematics education and the role of logic in the Hungarian tradition. Then, we present insights on the role of research problems in the French tradition. Finely, we raise some didactical issues in algorithmic thinking at the interface of mathematics and computer science.

  Subject Classification: 97E30

• Metadata formats and the new markup language from library field

  85-102

  Marianna Salgáné Medveczki

  Views:

  4

  Using new communication technologies libraries must face continuously new questions, possibilities and expectations. This study discusses some library-related aspects of our electronic era and how computer-related data formats affect bibliographic dataprocessing to give a survey of the most important results.
  Altough library systems have been supporting the creation and maintenance of MARC records for decades, the need to create other forms of metadata is relatively new. In higher education it is important that students get acquainted with these new aspects of bibliographic description and bibliographic dataprocessing.
  In our department I launched the BDML development project in order to standardize bibliographic description (based on Hungarian standard 3424/1) with the help of XML. The development aims at the creation of a set of standards that provides information about the structure of bibliographic description in XML form. In the second part of the paper I give a brief presentation and summary of BDML.

• The transition problem in Hungary: curricular approach

  1-16

  Éva Erdélyi

  András Dukán

  Csaba Szabó

  Views:

  117

  The curricular background of the transition problem from highschool to universty is analysed in Hungary. While students finish their mathematical studies successfully at highschool, pass their final exams, this knowledge seems to disappear at their first year at university. We investigate the mathematical knowledge expected by the Hungarian universities and compare it to expectations of the National Core Curriculum. Based on the levelling tests of four universities we created a seven problem test for highschool students containing very basic problems required both by the universities and the National Core Curriculum. We analyse the results of the test.

  Subject Classification: D34, D35