Dates

19-20 November, 2020

Has COVID-19 disrupted your teaching in mathematics? Do you want to connect with the most powerful online mathematical tools and resources to enable you forge powerful ways on teaching and assessment of mathematical sciences?

Then join our AfMS digital mathematical conference, you will discover:

• Powerful skills for online teaching of mathematics

• How to use technology to teach mathematics remotely in developing world

• A network of mathematicians from Africa and beyond and build research collaborations.

REGISTER HERE

or contact one of our conference organizers directly for more details.

• Title: Developing online mathematics workbooks for engineering and STEM education.

• Speaker: Chris Sangwin

• Affiliation: University of Edinburgh, UK

Abstract:

As a response to COVID-19 during the summer of 2020, the University of Edinburgh and Loughborough University collaborated to develop comprehensive online workbooks for engineering and STEM mathematics. Our approach was to use the STACK online assessment system to combine experienced gained with running the fully online course ``Fundamentals of Algebra and Calculus'' (FAC), with materials from a previous project, HELM (Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics) project workbooks. This talk will review the STACK online assessment system, demonstrate the approach we used in FAC and then report on progress in updating the HELM materials.

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• Title: PreTeXt: Write Once, Read Anywhere

• Speaker: Rob Beezer

• Affiliation: University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington, USA

Abstract:

PreTeXt is an authoring language and publishing system for scholarly documents. Mathematics and other STEM disciplines are its forte, and it has found its greatest application in creating textbooks with open licenses (there are about one hundred to date).

Since authoring captures the logical structure of a document, and makes no assumptions about presentation, PreTeXt source can be converted to formats as diverse as online web pages, print, PDF, EPUB, Jupyter notebooks, and braille. The online HTML version is highly accessible, working well for readers with a range of disabilities. The flexibility of PreTeXt, and its adherence to open standards for output, suggest it could be an important tool for meeting the challenges facing education across Africa.

We will introduce the basic principles of the design of PreTeXt and some of its more unique features, along with showcasing various projects. We will include some direction on how you can get started using PreTeXt books in your courses, or how you can get started authoring a PreTeXt book.

https://pretextbook.org

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• Title: Numbas, an open-source e-assessment system for mathematics

• Speaker: Christian Lawson-Perfect

• Affiliation: Newcastle University, UK

Abstract:

Numbas is an open-source e-assessment system designed for use in mathematics and related disciplines, developed at Newcastle University, UK, and used around the world. It runs entirely on the student's device, which makes it immediately responsive, robust to poor internet connections, and means it can be used at large scale with very little infrastructure. As well as a rich set of features to support assessment of mathematics, Numbas supports extensions to provide functionality such as interactive diagrams or libraries of functions. There is a large public database of material published under permissive Creative Commons licences. I will demonstrate Numbas, and talk about practical aspects of its use.

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• Title: PedaL - Future Proofing Maths.

• Speaker: Beatrice Muganda

• Affiliation: Partnership for Social and Governance Research

Abstract:

Maths is celebrated for driving innovations that define modern day art, Architecture, Engineering, Science and Technology. Content authoring software like Articulate Storyline 360, Articulate studio, H5P and GeoGebra, the dynamic mathematics software are powerful content authoring tools that enable educators to author and share math content on online platforms. Computer Assisted Software are also available to ease the burden of assessment and capturing student learning outcomes. These range from Socrative. Wiki’s, Discussion Forums, blogs and e-rubrics. However, merely placing content on a Learning Management System does not guarantee that students will engage the content in a meaningful way to develop the expected competencies.

The Pedagogical Leadership in Africa (PedaL) training programme has designed appropriate interventions that empower university lecturers to leverage on technology to facilitate holistic development of student competencies. PedaL’s transformative pedagogy, its tools and exceptional learning moments have the capacity to future proof Maths against the perils of a predominant transmission mode of delivery that undermines the development of 21 st Century skills among students. It is through PedaL that Maths will improve its attractiveness among groups that have traditionally tended to shy away from the discipline; it will thrive and scale the desired impact.

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• Title: An animation engine for explanatory math videos

• Speaker: Roswitha Rissner

• Affiliation: University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Abstract:

Manim is a Python framework for easily producing mathematical animations. It has been created by Grant ``3Blue1Brown'' Sanderson whose explanatory math videos have numerous subscribers on Youtube. In order to actively maintain, continuously develop and document Manim, a community has formed which very recently published the first release of the community edition of Manim.

This talk serves as a taster class. We will get to know Manim's basic functionalities by producing a few short video sequences together. In case you want to try it out yourself in real-time on your own device during the talk, please install the community edition of Manim beforehand. Instructions can be found on https://docs.manim.community/en/latest/installation.html.

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• Title: A Symbiotic Relationship Between Matroid Theory and Graph Theory.

• Speaker: Eunice Gogo Mphako-Banda

• Affiliation: University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Abstract:

Matroids and graphs are everywhere in mathematics if only we know how to identify these structures. The theory of these structures has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship since the inception of matroids. In this talk, we give a formal definition of a graph followed by a few examples. We also give a formal definition of a matroid followed by a few examples. Thereafter, we discuss the basic relationship between a graph and a matroid. Furthermore, we give one example of how the theory of matroids has benefited from the theory of graphs.

Finally, we conclude this talk by discussing briefly a personal journey and personal view of carrying out mathematics research in Africa.

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• Title: Comprehensive University Timetabling System UniTime

• Speaker: Tomáš Müller

• Affiliation: Purdue University, USA.

Abstract:

UniTime is a comprehensive educational scheduling system that supports developing course and examination timetables, managing changes to these timetables, sharing rooms with other events, and scheduling both students and instructors to individual classes. It is a distributed system that allows multiple university and departmental schedule managers to coordinate efforts to build and modify a schedule that meets their diverse organizational needs while allowing for minimization of student course conflicts. It can be used alone to create and maintain a school's schedule of classes and/or exams, or interfaced with an existing student information system.

The system was originally developed as a collaborative effort by faculty, students, and staff at universities in North America and Europe. The software is distributed free under an open-source license in hopes that other colleges and universities can benefit their students through better scheduling or wish to contribute to ongoing research in this area. The UniTime project has become a sponsored project of the Apereo Foundation in March 2015.

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• Title: The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Ecosystem of Transformation

• Speaker: Mama Foupouagnigni

• Affiliation: AIMS Global Network and President of AIMS Centre in Cameroon.

Abstract:

In this talk, we first present the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the first Pan-African Network of Center of Excellence in Mathematical Sciences. Secondly, we focus on our contribution to the training of the next generation of African Leading Scientists in Mathematical Sciences via our key activities such as Postgraduate Education, Higher level Research and Public Engagement.

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• Title: The WeBWorK on-line homework system and its academic community

• Speakers: Michael Gage, University of Rochester

Andrew Parker, New York City College of Technology (CityTech)

Marianna Bonanome, New York City College of Technology (CityTech

Abstract:

We’ll start with brief, basic introduction to WeBWorK , an online homework system for delivering individualized problems over the web. By providing students with immediate feedback as to the correctness of their answers, students can be encouraged to make multiple attempts until they succeed. With individualized problem sets, students can work together but will have to enter their own work to receive credit.

Next we’ll present some of the newer features of WeBWorK and showcase the active community which supports WeBWorK and encourages the creation of innovative ways to use it in the teaching of mathematics and other STEM subjects.

Demonstration courses which you can use to explore WeBWorK’s capabilities are at:https://demo.webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/2020AfricanMathConference101 (username: profa, password: profa)

https://demo.webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/2020AfricanMathConference102

https://demo.webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/2020AfricanMathConference103, etc.

Slides: https://demo.webwork.rochester.edu/gage/2020AfricanMathConference/2020_AfricanMathConference.pdf

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• Title: Mastering Open Education Resources with LibreTexts

• Speaker: Delmar Larsen

• Affiliation: University of California, Davis

Abstract:

LibreTexts is an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society. With LibreTexts, students, faculty, and outside experts work together to build freely available open education resources that supplant conventional paper-based textbooks. LibreTexts currently encompass twelve widely used college-level disciplines from chemistry to humanities with over 68,500 pages. Bring a device to this hands-on session where you will explore the LibreVerse ecosystem which has textbooks, homework, and annotation tools. Learn about the LibreTexts OER Remixer 2.0, a service for remixing various OERs to create your own customized OER. Participants are asked to bring their own device to this session.