Document 447

How to use Scientific WorkPlace or Scientific Notebook as a whiteboard

Version: 3.x, 4.x, 5.x - Scientific WorkPlace & Scientific Notebook

Classroom lecturing that has been done using a traditional whiteboard can be effectively and quickly accomplished in SWP and SNB. With practice, you can use SWP or SNB to deliver coherent and informative lectures, typing them as you talk, and produce detailed, readable lecture notes.

Critical to the success of your electronic whiteboard efforts is the mastery of several SWP/SNB features:

  • Automatic substitution

  • Fragments

  • Keyboard shortcuts

  • Drag-and-drop procedures

  • Customized keyboard and mouse settings

Save your notes and export them as both wrapped (.rap) and HTML (.htm) files, then make them available to students online after every class. Students are freed from taking detailed class notes and can concentrate on subject matter during classroom lectures.

Among many useful classroom techniques is using SWP/SNB to demonstrate the steps involved in the solution to a problem by "computing in place"—that is, replacing part of an expression with the result of an operation. This feature provides a convenient way for you to manipulate expressions into the forms you desire.

Follow these general instructions to compute in place:

  1. Enter a mathematical expression.

  2. Select the expression.

  3. Hold down the Ctrl key and, from the Compute menu, choose an operation.

    The computational engine replaces the original expression with the result of the operation.

Examples

  • Simplify MATH

  1. Click Fraction button , type x+2, press Tab, type x+1, and press the spacebar.

  2. Type + , click Fraction button , type 3x, press Tab, and type x-1.

  3. Click simplify.wmf or from the Compute menu, choose Simplify. The computational engine returns this result:
    MATH

  4. Select the denominator in the answer, hold down the Ctrl key, and click Expand button Compute menu, choose Expand. On your screen, you see this result:


    MATH

  • Replace MATH in the expression MATH with its expansion

  1. Enter the expression

  2. Select MATH.

  3. Hold down the Ctrl key and click Expand button Compute menu, choose Expand. On your screen you see this result:
    MATH

  4. Note that the expansion has no parentheses around it, but since it remains selected, you can click Parentheses button to add the needed parentheses.

Last revised 01/19/06

This document was created with Scientific WorkPlace.