Slides developed for the UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) conference, April 14, 2010.

1. Using Mathematica as an interactive F2F and online teaching environment Robert R. Gotwals North Carolina School of Science and Math gotwals@ncssm.edu

2. Teaching Environment Specialized high school for science/math students Computationally-based courses Computational chemistry Computational Medicinal Chemistry Research in Computational Science Core Courses Chemistry by Inquiry Two modes Residential (F2F) courses Online courses (NCSSM Online, http://online.ncssm.edu)

3. Teaching Needs Electronic notebooks Text, data, graphics, hyperlinks, other media Computational engine Data analysis (statistics) Data visualization Specialized resources Bioinformatics, other “omics” capabilities

4. Strategies Electronic Notebooks Microsoft Word Various wiki tools (Moodle, Wikispaces, etc.) Computational engines Excel – general data analysis tool Gnuplot (data visualization) “R” – statistics package Specialized Resources Jmol, LigandExplorer

5. Challenges Multiple tools, multiple platforms Lack of seamless integration Multiple learning curves No one tool adequate for our needs

6. Current Solution Mathematica “Mathematica is a computational software program used in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing” Mathematical function library Special mathematical function library 2D and 3D data and function visualization and animation tools Solvers for systems of equations Numeric and symbolic tools for calculus Multivariate statistics libraries Toolkit for adding user interfaces to calculations Tools for image processing Tools for visualizing and analyzing graphs Tools for combinatorics problems Data mining tools such as cluster analysis, sequence alignment and pattern matching Import and export filters for data, images, video, sound, CAD, GIS, document and biomedical formats Database collection for mathematical, scientific, and socio-economic information Support for complex number, arbitrary precision, interval arithmetic and symbolic computation Notebook interface for review and re-use of previous inputs and outputs including graphics and text annotations Technical word processing including formula editing and automated report generating Tools for connecting to SQL, Java, .NET, C++, FORTRAN and http based systems Tools for parallel programming

7. Palette Support

8. Sample Research Notebook

9. Sample Classroom Product

10. Sample Student Lab

11. Computational Engine

12. Specialized Computations

13. Mathematica Pros and Cons Pros Cross platform Exceptionally robust Huge user community Exceptional documentation / help capabilities Reasonable learning curve Cons Expensive

14. Questions?