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• Mathematics in Good Will Hunting II: problems from the students perspective

  3-19

  Gábor Horváth

  József Korándi

  Csaba Szabó

  Views:

  7

  This is the second part of a three paper long series exploring the role of mathematicians and of the mathematical content occurring in popular media. In particular we analyze the drama film Good Will Hunting. Here we investigate the mathematical content of the movie by considering the problems appearing in it. We examine how a mathematician or a mathematics student would solve these problems. Moreover, we review how these problems could be integrated into the higher education of Hungary.

• Using the computer to visualise graph-oriented problems

  15-32

  Erika Gyöngyösi

  Views:

  7

  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.

• Mathematics in Good Will Hunting I: the mathematicians in Good Will Hunting

  375-388

  József Korándi

  Gabriella Pluhár

  Views:

  9

  This is the first part of a three paper long series exploring the role of mathematicians and of the mathematical content occurring in popular media. In particular, we analyze the movie Good Will Hunting. In the present paper we investigate stereotypes about mathematicians living in the society and appearing in Good Will Hunting.

• 14 to 18-year-old Hungarian high-school students' view of mathematicians appearing in the media - a case study

  183-194

  Orsolya Dóra Lócska

  Zoltán Kovács

  Views:

  1

  One way to develop positive attitude toward STEM subjects that popular media, including movies and films can be engaged to promote more positive and inclusive STEM images. The movie Hidden numbers offers an opportunity to explore the representations of scholars, especially mathematicians within a biographical drama. Focusing on 5 characters, this article first discusses whether these characters fit into stereotypical scientist image or not. Secondly, we examine how high school students evaluate these characters. We argue that this movie is suitable to promote positive attitude toward STEM subjects.

• Reappraising Learning Technologies from the Viewpoint of the Learning of Mathematics

  221-246

  Lenni Haapasalo

  Peter Samuels

  Views:

  7

  Within the context of secondary and tertiary mathematics education, most so-called learning technologies, such as virtual learning environments, bear little relation to the kinds of technologies contemporary learners use in their free time. Thus they appear alien to them and unlikely to stimulate them toward informal learning. By considering learning technologies from the perspective of the learner, through the analysis of case studies and a literature review, this article asserts that the expectation of these media might have been over-romanticised. This leads to the recommendation of five attributes for mathematical learning technologies to be more relevant to contemporary learners' needs: promoting heuristic activities derived from human history; facilitating the shift from instrumentation to instrumentalisation; facilitating learners' construction of conceptual knowledge that promotes procedural knowledge; providing appropriate scaffolding and assessment; and reappraising the curriculum.

• The role of computer in the process of solving of mathematical problems (results of research)

  67-80

  Henryk Kąkol

  Tadeusz Ratusiński

  Views:

  9

  We would like to present results of an almost two years investigations about the role computer in the process of solving of mathematical problems. In these investigations took part 35 students of the secondary school (generalists) in the age 17–19 years. Each of these students solved following problem:
  Find all values of the parameter m so that the function
  f(x) = |mx + 1| − |2x − m| is:
  a) bounded,
  b) bounded only from the bottom,
  c) bounded only from above,
  first without a computer and next with a special computer program. We would like to show results of these researches.

• Forming the concept of parameter with examples of problem solving

  201-215

  Katarzyna Wadoń-Kasprzak

  Views:

  11

  Pupils are encountering difficulties with learning algebra. In order for them to understand algebraic concepts, particularly the concept of parameter it was decided by the teacher of mathematics and Information Technology to integrate the teaching of these two subjects. The aim of this study is to investigate whether, and to what degree, software can be useful in process of forming the concept of parameter. This longitudinal study was conducted in a junior high school (13-16 year old children) using different computer programs.

• Teaching XML

  317-335

  Péter Jeszenszky

  Views:

  7

  The author has been teaching XML at the Faculty of Informatics, University of Debrecen since the end of the nineties. This paper gives an overview of XML technology from an educators viewpoint that is based on the experience that the author has gained teaching XML over the years. A detailed description of the XML course is provided. Methodological issues are also discussed.