[seul-edu] [prevettl@cochise.cc.az.us: re: WIMS, a web math educational software for Linux]

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

----- Forwarded message from owner-seul-edu@seul.org -----

Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 21:14:30 -0700
From: lp <prevettl@cochise.cc.az.us>
To: seul-edu@seul.org
Subject: re: WIMS, a web math educational software for Linux

> Here's a message from XIAO Gang, the author of WIMS.  This may be of
> interest to a good number of us.  Please take a look at it.  And if
you have
> any observations about it, please mention them here and also send them

> directly to the author, as he isn't on the seul-edu mailing list.
> The home server of WIMS is accessible at http://wims.unice.fr/, with
> 2  public mirrors in other countries. Despite the word 'mathematics'
in
> its name, the software kernel can be used for other disciplines as
well
> (only the contents need to be developed). And the source code is
> distributed under GPL.

Hello,

I'm a mathematics instructor at Cochise College. We are maintaining one
of the mirror sites for WIMS.

Anyway, I'd be willing to help anyone get the server up and running if
they are interested. (It would be nice to have several more WIMS sites
by the
fall.) I've spent an immense amount of time looking at educational apps
for Linux,
and I think this is one solid server app that educators should rally
behind and run with.

We have limited computer resources for math/science at our school and
virtually no budget for computers. Most of our equipment comes from
equipment that is being disposed of by the computer science department.
(There is no formal procedure for this - the math lab personnel are
always
on the lookout for piles of old computers lying around.) The rest of the
equipment
and software we have to buy out of our own pockets.

I started with a small 150 MHz pc with 16 MB of ram and got the server
to run on that. When I was more familiar with the server, I increased
the
ram to 64 MB and asked the network people if they would give us a fixed
ip address so we could run it on the internal network at the school as
an
experiment. They were kind enough to say ok, but they said we'd have
to make do with DHCP assigned ips and they couldn't help us maintain
it because it was a Unix application and the school network was MS
based.

It was enough to get WIMS to work on the internal network and
demonstrate it to the students and the other members of the math/science

department. We ran the server internally for about 3 months and it
didn't crash
once. The server was very slow when even 5 students were accessing it.
We got permission from the Math/Science Dean to take one of the 233 MHz
Pcs (that had been donated from the Math Lab to the Math Dept.) and put
it
on the internet with the help of the great guys running our network.
They gave
us an ip address and a domain name but told us again that we would have
to
maintain it ourselves. We bought a cheap 450 MHz chip and installed that

along with 128 MB of ram. We plan to put more ram on for the fall
semester.

I feel that educational servers are just as an important part of an
educational portfolio as standalone software. The network people are
delighted with WIMS
because it runs outside the school network on the internet and reduces
the amount
of traffic on the internal network. Of course, you have the option of
running the server
on an intranet, or even on a standalone PC.

With server software, you only have to install it once on one machine.
Then everyone can access it with their browser. I argue every day with
my peers about the pros and cons of Linux applications versus MS apps,
but no one argues that Linux server applications are superb. They're
free
(great for people with no budget), they're stable, they're reasonably
fast.

In addition to WIMS, we are experimenting with GRASS for GIS
applications. We are currently looking for chemistry, biology, astronomy

or physics servers of the same caliber as WIMS. The drawback, of course,

is that servers are harder to get installed. Installing the WIMS is a
very
valuable learning experience for anyone interested in Unix/Linux and
very
much worth the effort. Once it is installed the first time, installing
the new
versions is very easy.

Stand-alone applications are important too; a simple program that does
one simple task, but does it well, is a hallmark of good unix
applications. (I really
like gperiodic for this reason.) The problem here is that all of the
machines
run Windows. We have experimented with
XWin-32 and VNC. Only one version of the XWin-32 demo can be active on
the network and we have no money for the license fees. We haven't got
VNC to work
yet. So running server applications like WIMS is about the only way I
can run Linux
applications at the moment. I must also remark that, In my opinion, Xiao
is an absolute
genius at taking existing standalone applications and deploying them in
a
server environment.

If you want to experiment with the server, click on "Best Of" and then
"Polyray". Polyray uses Povray to do ray tracing on quadratic surfaces.
(They look great as a Windows backgrounds.) You can use "Traces Animes"
to get other graphs. You can use the "Function Calculator"  to get
integrals
and derivatives. You can use "Sigma" from the main menu to get the sum
of a series.

Also, We have started an initiative to translate the server into
spanish. If anyone
wants to help with that, let me know.

Jessica Fry, SEUL advocate, was a student in two of my classes. She told

me about SEUL and I have been following the archives for some time -
it's a very
useful site - thanks a lot guys!

(By the way, I asked Jessica to come to speak to a group of high school
teachers here about SEUL. She was very friendly and informative and did
a fantastic
job. You should probably give her a bunch of money and have her travel
the world
to tell everyone about SEUL.)

I have been meaning to send a post to SEUL but haven't had time until
now. (I and some others have also been meaning to contact Harry
McGregor who is just a few miles away up at Corbett in Tucson.)

Hope everyone has a great summer.  Feel free to contact me if I can help
with WIMS.

L. Prevett
Mathematics Instructor, Cochise College
Sierra Vista, AZ, US
prevettl@cochise.cc.az.us

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