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Intro email for workshop

Initial letter

Dear Colleagues,

It's under a week now until the Joint Meetings, and with that, under a week until the minicourse "Authoring Integrated Online Textbooks with MathBook XML", starting Thursday afternoon. We're looking forward to introducing you to PreTeXt (PTX), which is the new name for MathBook XML, for making open educational resources!

We hope you have all been able to have a rest after submitting grades but before the meetings and the new term. If so (and even if not), we have a short list of "homework" to maximize our on-site, in-person time for the workshop.

1. First, and most importantly, please try to set the (wireless-enabled) computer you will use for the workshop up for the workshop. This mainly involves either setting yourself up in the cloud service CoCalc, or downloading certain easy tools for your computer. (Or both.) You should have already received an invitation email to the CoCalc project.

   See the other files for instructions and links to tutorial videos. If you want the workshop leaders to be able to easily “check your work”, you may wish to use the Cloud option in addition to any option locally on your computer.

2. Start brainstorming about the project (big or a short course supplement) you'd like to start or work on during the workshop!

3. Take a few minutes to peruse a few samples of books created using PTX. This will give you an idea of features that you might want in the project you brainstormed. Since the PTX gallery http://mathbook.pugetsound.edu/gallery.html can be overwhelming initially, we've selected a few books and one page from each that illustrates some features of PTX and the many topics possible to write about.

   • Active Calculus by Boelkins et al. (activities, tables, graphs, WeBWorK, hyperlinks)

     • Sample page: http://faculty.gvsu.edu/boelkinm/Home/AC/sec-4-1-velocity-distance.html

   • Discrete Mathematics: An Open Introduction by Levin

     • Demonstrates: investigations, customization, graphs

     • Sample page: http://discrete.openmathbooks.org/dmoi/sec_planar.html

   • ORCCA: Open Resources for Community College Algebra by Portland Community College

     • Demonstrates: embedded video, WW, graphing, exercises in columns

     • Sample page: http://spot.pcc.edu/math/orcca/section-graphing-equations.html

   • The Ordinary Differential Equations Project by Judson

     • Demonstrates: graphics and figures generated using SageMath code in PTX

     • Sample page: http://faculty.sfasu.edu/judsontw/ode/html/linear04.html

   • Number Theory: In Context and Interactive by Crisman

     • Demonstrates: interactive Sage applets for exploration

     • Sample page: http://math.gordon.edu/ntic/ntic/section-prim-roots.html

   • Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications by Judson

     • Demonstrates: copious Sage exercises by Beezer

     • Sample page: http://abstract.pugetsound.edu/aata/groups-sage.html

   • Applied Combinatorics by Keller and Trotter

     • Demonstrates: SageMath, examples, solutions

     • Sample page: http://rellek.net/book/s_genfunction_distributions.html

4. Be aware of the post-workshop evaluation survey instrument at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RCTTT5D No, don't fill it out yet 😃 but we all know that our students don't fill those eval forms out without repeated reminders, so we figured we'd get a head start.

If you have any trouble with your setup, please don't hesitate to email us, and we'll respond as best we can. Or, better, join the PreTexT support list (see links below) which will have a far bigger online community to help out. As always, see http://mathbook.pugetsound.edu and the many resources there as well for tons of reference, quickstart, etc.

We'll see you Thursday afternoon at 1:00 in San Diego!

Karl-Dieter Crisman and Mitch Keller