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The JOMA Mathlet Project - Welcome to the Inaugural Issue!

Author(s): 
Tom Roby

Welcome to the inaugural issue of JOMA Mathlets! This regular section of JOMA will present some of the best small interactive web-based tools ("mathlets") for use in teaching mathematics. We expect that many readers will be able to make immediate use of these mathlets, some in classroom demonstrations, some for student exploration.

Tom Roby

JOMA Mathlets Editor, 2000-2003

California State University, Hayward

In this first issue we focus on calculus mathlets. These are not all the good calculus mathlets around, or even all the good ones we found. But they are a sampling of the best that are currently available. More information on the search and review process is available in the next section.

Interactivity is key not only to the value of mathlets, but also to JOMA itself. Please join in the discussion. If you find an innovative way of using a mathlet, or an ingenious way of breaking it, add your comment directly to the mathlet's page. This will be of great service to the author, to others trying to use the same mathlet, and to potential authors who may want to improve on what has been done before.

Indeed, in the world of mathlets the biggest issues currently are high redundacy (duplication of effort) and a need to promote quality. There are many different versions of such a basic mathlet as one that demonstrates Riemann sums. And (as Jerry Porter is fond of pointing out) these same sorts of tools have been around in one form or another as long as computers have been able to draw pictures. The big difference now is our freedom to easily share things globally. By highlighting some of the best mathlets currently available, we hope to provide both an incentive for creating high-quality work, and standards for authors to meet and improve upon.

Tom Roby, "The JOMA Mathlet Project - Welcome to the Inaugural Issue!," Convergence (June 2004)