Partial differential equations with webMathematica

Abstract

The growing popularity of the internet, and the increasing number of computers connected to it, make it an ideal framework for remote education. Many disciplines are rethinking their traditional philosophies and techniques to adapt to the new technologies. Web-based education is an effective framework for such learning, which simplifies theory understanding, encourages learning by discovery and experimentation and undoubtedly makes the learning process more pleasant. There is a need for adequate tools to help in the elaboration of courses that might make it possible to express all the possibilities offered by www teaching. webMathematica is a web-based technology developed by Wolfram Research that allows the generation of dynamic web content with Mathematica. With this technology, distance education students should be able to explore and experiment with mathematical concepts. In this paper we present a sample lecture for Partial Differential Equations in webMathematica for the distance learning environment.