Last edited 13may13, 29may13, 9jun13 by gfrancis@uiuc.edu

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Summer 2013 Course Description:

Regarding online Summer 2013

netMA402: POST-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

Professor: George Francis Contact: gfrancis@uiuc.edu
Teaching Assistants: Shiya Liu Contact: liu@uiuc.edu
Text: Michael Hvidsten, Geometry with Geometry Explorer, McGrawHill, 2004
Software: Michael Hvidsten Geometry Explorer 2.0 Prerequisites: Consent of the Instructor or UIUC: MA241 and MA347.

Geometry is one of the richest areas for mathematical exploration. The visual aspects of the subject make exploration and experimentation natural and intuitive. At the same time, the abstractions developed to explain geometric patterns and connections make the subject extremely powerful and applicable to a wide variety of physical situations. In this book [and course] we give equal weight to intuitive and imaginative exploration of geometry, and to abstract reasoning and proof.

From the Introduction of Hvidsten't text

To pursue these twin goals we use a new version of the Geometry Explorer (GEX) and a custom client-server LaTeX package texWins to achieve a balanced mixture of contemporary and classical learning techniques adapted to the distance education model of online higher college geometry. Lessons taken from the text are supplemented by online commentaries. Homework should be submitted online illustrated PDFs composed in GEX and texWins. Corrections and comments by the course mentors are returned to the student. A handwritten bound journal may be used by the student as reference during the proctored, timed midterm and final examinations. Under certain circumstances, a student may be asked to submit the Jounal for evaluation in lieu of serious deficiencies in submitted work.

Students have email and Moodle access to the instructional staff. All questions regarding geometry and course mechanics should be posted to the Moodle. Personal questions should be conducted by email. Be sure you begin the email subject line with "netMA402Su13" to pass filtration.

All lessons, advice, tutorials, homework assignments and commentaries begin from the current webpage. Be sure you bookmark this page for easy reference. Each time you access a page on this site, refresh your browser in case an obsolete copy is cached. The proctored 2 hour midterm must be taken in the week of 8jul13. The proctored 3 hour final must be taken between 2aug13 and 6aug13. All other quizzes, homework and assignments are scheduled on the syllabus. Your semester grade is based on the achieved level of competence, not on an accumulation of points for completed tasks. It will be based on this distribution: 30% final, 20% midterm, 50% class participation which is based on all other assigned and optional work.