Happy Valentine’s Day! Love is celebrated all around the world on this day, but did you know of some other love celebrations, and some of the mythology around the holiday?

First of all, Cupid. We all know of the image of Cupid and his bow, shooting arrows to make couples fall in love. But where exactly did this come from?

Cupid is a Latin deity, the son of Venus and Mars. With his parents being love and war, it’s no surprise that he ended up with a bow! In one legend, he shoots a golden arrow at Apollo, which makes him fall in love with a nymph. Unfortunately for Apollo, he also shoots a lead arrow at the nymph, making her repulsed by him.

Roses are another popular tradition with Valentine’s Day. Red roses persist as a symbol of Aphrodite, the mother of Cupid, and are a symbol of love. Did you know you can draw them in Maple Learn with our geometry palette? See one rendition below of a stained glass rose. The link to the document is HERE.

Now, there are a few other love traditions around the world. Did you know that not everyone celebrates love only on Valentine’s Day? There are other important days around the world, and some pre-date Valentine’s Day.

For example, in China, the Miao people celebrate the Sister’s Meal Festival, likely our earliest form of a Valentine’s Day tradition in the world. This occurs in March. Young women make dyed rice representing the different seasons, and when the men come by to sing, they give them packages of the rice. Inside the rice are objects, each with different meanings. A pair of red chopsticks means the woman returns the man’s affection, while one red chopstick is a polite refusal. A clove of garlic or a chili pepper means a strong refusal, and pine needles mean that she is waiting for him to woo her.

We’ve created a document to join in on the fun, even if you’re not participating in this Festival this year. Follow the link HERE to work with fraction tiles to pack your own rice packages, and your own responses to declarations of love. 

We hope everyone has a lovely Valentine’s day!

You heard us right! With the new update of Maple Learn, we’ve added a few more interesting features, perfect to keep your math learning going.

Before we dig too far into these exciting features, we just have one quick thing to let you know about. We have updated the font sizes for Maple Learn text, adding 20 and 22 point font, and removing 36 and 120 point font.

Now, let’s talk new features. First, we’ve added support for partial derivatives, allowing you to calculate derivatives for functions with two or more variables. How does this work? Well, take a look at our example document HERE. The button for entering a partial derivative is located in the functions palette. You can plot them too (shown below)!

We’ve also added support for shaded Geometric Primitives. Remember our earlier post about MAPLE LEARN ART? Well, now you can color in your shapes! This allows for further math-related art, or ease of communication while teaching about area, or really, anything else you can think of! See how to use this HERE. In essence, with the shaded command, you can now place a geometric primitive inside the shaded command, which shades it! As well, you can assign a variable to a geometric primitive, and then place that inside the shaded command. This allows for a different color outline than the shaded section.

Ever wanted to create a sequence in Maple Learn? Well, now you can easily, with our new sequence support. The syntax is simple, focusing on the start, end, and steps. See how to use this HERE. We hope this can be used for all kinds of documents!

We hope you enjoy all the new features we’ve added to Maple Learn. Let us know in the comments what you think of them, and show us what you’re working on! Simply leave a comment with a link to a Maple Learn document, and we’ll gladly take a look at your ideas.

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone here in the MaplePrimes community, as we enter the Year of the Tiger! There are different traditions followed in the many countries around the world where the Lunar New Year is celebrated. In my own Canadian-Chinese family, we usually cook a big meal and share with family members and friends. 

The pandemic has made this year's celebration more muted, but I did cook a large batch of our favourite dumplings and made up several packages to take to friends. That led to the question: how many ways can I arrange 10 dumplings on a plate from the 3 kinds I made? Of course, that called for a Maple Learn document to compute the answer: A Counting Problem: Selecting Dumplings
 

I was also interested in understanding the formula used in this computation, and so I created a second document showing a special case of this problem. By moving the sliders around, you can see how the "Stars and Bars" method for counting the ways one can choose a number of items from distinct bins works: Visualization the Stars and Bars Method.

I hope you enjoy trying out these documents and I wish everyone good health, happiness and prosperity in the coming year!

In November, I posted a message announcing that we have been working on an updated version of the Application Center, and invited comments from anyone wanting to check out the beta site. I received multiple comments, both as comments to that post, as well as directly, and we made a lot of changes based on the feedback. Thank you very much to everyone who responded.

I am now very happy to report that the new Application Center is now open to the public!

For those who aren't familiar with it, the Application Center has been around for over 20 years, and it provides a place for our user community to post and share their work. It includes over over 2,700 applications and examples covering a wide array of topics and disciplines, and all are freely available to download.

The previous version of the Application Center was overdue for a refresh. And while we were in there applying a fresh coat of paint, we also took the opportunity to add some new features and capabilities that we hope you will enjoy. As a quick summary of what has changed:

• The look and feel has been significantly updated. It is cleaner, more modern and easier to use.
• In addition to search, user-created collections and tags make it easier than ever to find and discover content.
• Logged-in users can customize the site by pinning their favorite collections and content.
• Logged-in users can also take advantage of their community reputation to help maintain the content in MaplePrimes, and your contributions will now contribute to your reputation scores. For example, when someone likes one of your apps, your reputation score will be increased by 5.
• In addition to Maple content, Maple Flow documents are also now included. The collection is very small right now, but it will grow quickly.

There are plenty of other features and enhancements as well.

So without further ado, I invite you to check out the Application Center and to continue to provide your comments and suggestions!

Bryon

When I was in middle school, I was really into puzzles.  At one point I attempted the Three Utilities Problem.  This famous problem is deceptively simple: three houses and three “utilities” (heating, water, and electricity) are represented by dots on a flat piece of paper.  The goal is to connect each house to the three utilities without crossing any lines.

Figure 1: A starting setup.

I spent hours drawing lines.  I eventually looked it up online, and the internet told me that the problem was impossible.  I didn’t believe it, and tried for several more hours until I was forced to accept its impossibility.  I still remember this intense stint of puzzling to this day.

Figure 2: Cue twelve-year-old me saying “I’ll get it eventually…”

Looking back, I wonder if this sparked my interest in graph theory.  I know now that the Three Utilities Problem is truly unsolvable.  I know that the graph’s formal name is K_3,3 and I know a full graph theory proof explaining its nonplanarity.  Nevertheless, I still love this puzzle, and I’ve recently recreated it in Maple Learn.

To do this, I created a table of x and y values and plotted all of them using the Point() command.  This allows the points to be fully click-and-drag-able.  Line segments joining two points automatically move with the points as well.  We then have a fully interactive graph directly in the Maple Learn plot window.  I can move the “houses” and “utilities” around all I want to try and solve the unsolvable.  I can also create other graphs to further explore planarity, paths, matchings, or any other aspects of the wide world of graph theory.

If you want to check out the document for yourself, it can be found here. 

I’m looking for users’ favourite tips and tricks in Maple Learn. Specifically, small pieces of advice that most people don’t know about, but that helped you create better Maple Learn documents. For instance,

• A favorite feature that you think is hard to discover;
• Common techniques you use when creating documents;
• Things about Maple Learn you wish you knew when you started.

These tricks could be for newbies or for experienced users.

To start off the discussion, let me share three of my own favorite tricks in Maple Learn.

1. Using Documents from the Document Gallery

Writing a Maple Learn document from scratch can seem overwhelming, especially for beginners. A much easier way to create documents is to start with a template from the Document Gallery.

There are hundreds of Maple Learn documents in the Document Gallery, available here. Instead of writing Maple Learn documents from scratch, I like to search the gallery for documents relating to my topic. I then select a document, and just modify it slightly to get what I want.

2. Toggling from Math Mode to Text Mode

If you want to write text in a group element, it’s best to toggle to text mode (otherwise Maple Learn will treat your text as math).

While this can be done using the toolbar, there is a nifty keyboard shortcut to toggle to text mode: place your cursor at the beginning of the group element, and press the space key.

3. Using Double Arrows in Plots to Show Distance

Here’s one for the advanced users. The Vector Command lets you draw arrows on a Maple Learn plot. Combine two such arrows of the same colour going in opposite directions, and you get a double arrow (see below), which I like to use to represent distances in my Maple Learn documents.

Indeed, here is an example document where I use double arrows to provide a visualization of the product rule in calculus (plot pictured below). Notice how the double arrows (created using the vector command) represent distances in the plot.

Comment your favourite tips and tricks down below!

Since the start of the pandemic, I have been involved in online mathematics tutoring. I tried many different applications to best communicate with my students, and ended up sticking with Maple Learn. Here’s my setup, and why I chose Maple Learn.

My Setup

When I have an online tutoring session, I join a scheduled video call to “see” my students. I then open a blank Maple Learn document, and share my screen. I explain whatever I need to explain, while writing key information on the Maple Learn document. When I don’t want Learn to interpret what I write, I go into text mode; when I do (e.g. when I want to graph a function), I stay in math mode. When the class is over, I send the document’s sharelink to my students by email, so that they can access it. 

Here is an example of a Maple Learn document (pictured below) that I created while teaching trigonometry to a student. Keep in mind that I typed this while on call with the student, so the document is very simple - it only uses the most basic features of Maple Learn.

Why I Chose Maple Learn

My main student wants me to teach him trigonometry ahead of it being taught to him at school. For this, I need to be able to write lots of text and math easily, while on video call with him. 

Microsoft Word is not good enough for this: the equation editor is too clumsy. I also tried drawing tools where you can move your mouse to draw on the screen, but they make it too hard to write text. I even tried pointing a camera at my desk and writing the notes by hand, but my handwriting is terrible, and I could never find the right position for the camera. That’s the main reason why I chose Maple Learn: it lets me write both text and math quickly and simply, unlike many other applications.

There are some other benefits to using Maple Learn. I like that I can organize what I write in a visually appealing manner on the canvas, by moving groups around. I like that I can graph functions within Maple Learn, without having to open a graphing calculator in a separate tab. Finally, I find the sharelink feature convenient for sending the notes to my students after class.

Disclaimer: I discovered Maple Learn while working at Maplesoft during a co-op term.

Are you teaching a calculus course? Then use Maple Learn, Maplesoft’s free online product, to do so.

Below are some examples of calculus documents you can create in Maple Learn.

1. Documents Explaining Concepts with Interactive Visuals

Example: Visualizing the Formal Definition of the Derivative

2. Interactive Quizzes

Example: The Product Rule: Practice Questions

3. Documents Using Maple to Perform Complex Operations

Example: Taylor Series Approximation Calculator

Maplesoft’s learn content team has already created about 200 Maple Learn calculus documents! The full list is here. You can modify these documents easily, and use them to teach your calculus class as well.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, at Maplesoft, I have the privilege of working with some of the most talented and creative minds around. My colleagues are constantly pushing the boundaries of what we can build and what our products can do.

So to close out 2021, I wanted to share a video that one of our brilliant developers, Marek, sent the company. Marek emails a greeting every year wishing his Maplesoft colleagues a Happy Holiday.  Well, this year, he stepped it up a notch and created this superb video explaining "How to decorate for Christmas using Math", where he created a wreath using Maple Learn.

Watching the video brought a smile to my face, and I know it did the same for others.

I hope this video warms your heart as it did mine. On behalf of all of us at Maplesoft, Happy Holidays!

Recently, the Maple Learn team hosted an internal Maple Learn day. The team encouraged Maplesoft employees to create Maple Learn content. A lot of art was created.

Below is a link to an example of Maple Learn art, and a picture relating to it. The document is interactive, so open it to see what it does.

Christmas Art, by Marek Krzeminski - Senior Architect at Maplesoft

If you too like to combine math and art, use Maple Learn here to create artwork yourself, and share it with us in the comments.

Recently I decided to compare continuity, related notions, and differentiability. Can a function be differentiable, but not continuous? What about uniformly continuous, but not differentiable? I used Maplesoft's new online product, Maple Learn (free to use at learn.maplesoft.com), to explore.

Here is a Maple Learn document I created. It is an organizational diagram, as shown below. Each rectangle in the diagram corresponds to a different property that a function may satisfy. Within each rectangle, examples are provided of functions satisfying the appropriate properties.

If you click on an example, it will be selected, and the corresponding function will be plotted in Maple Learn's context panel. Try it!

I've also created companion documents to explain certain concepts in greater detail. For instance, below is a snapshot of a document explaining uniform continuity, which you can access here.

By using sliders in the document, you can move and resize the rectangle drawn in the graph. You should notice when doing this that the green function never touches the horizontal sides of the rectangle. This turns out to be the "reason" why the function is uniformly continuous.

You can find a companion document on Lipschitz continuity here.

I’ve learnt a lot about continuity in creating the documents shown. I hope that you too have learnt something from them!

The most frequent question I get asked when presenting Maple Learn is: “How is Maple Learn different from Desmos?”  The second most frequent question is: “How is Maple Learn different from GeoGebra?”. And they are great questions! Why invest time in learning and introducing students to something new if it works and behaves exactly like something you already use? I certainly wouldn’t bother, and I can’t imagine that anyone else would either. So, in this post, I will do my best to articulate the differences as succinctly as possible, and we’ll be happy to arrange a demo for anyone who is interested in learning more.  Are you ready for another top 3 list!?

Disclaimer: Before we dive in, I’d like to start by saying that Desmos and GeoGebra are great tools. This post is not intended to disparage them. Rather my goal is to highlight the things that make Maple Learn unique.

So without further ado:

1. Maple Learn is the equivalent to doing math on paper, just better!

Maple Learn is akin to a digital math notebook. The canvas gives students the same feeling as solving a math problem on paper – the ability to work through a problem line by line, with explanations, notes, and additional calculations wherever they want them on the page – only with extras. Students can also use Maple Learn to perform tedious intermediate steps, see a graph to get a better sense of the problem, vary parameters to explore the effect on graphs and results, do a quick side calculation to double-check an individual step, and verify the final result.

2. Maple Learn takes a more holistic approach to learning

Where other tools focus predominately on visualization and getting the final answer, the Maple Learn environment supports much more of the teaching and learning experience.  Students can articulate their thought processes and mathematical reasoning using a combination of text, math, plots and images that can be placed anywhere on the canvas. Teachers can devise lessons in Maple Learn that focus not just on solving problems, but on developing skills in mathematical thinking, communication, and all the competencies and standards outlined in the curriculum. For example, instead of having your students work through the minutia of solving for x from two equations, you can create a document that focuses on having them set up the problem correctly, and then let them use the content panel to get the solution. Or you can use interactive supports, such as Algebra Tiles, to allow them to explain the concept of Completing the Square. Or give them an equation, and ask them to jot down features of the equation. The questions you can pose and the discussion that arises as a result is what sets Maple Learn apart from the rest. Because ultimately, the study of mathematics and science is about understanding, not the final answer.

3. Maple Learn is about math not commands

Maple Learn is an environment for learning math and math-based subjects, not about learning commands. So how do you perform an operation in Maple Learn? Easy! Maple Learn’s intelligent context-sensitive panel offers students a list of relevant operations to choose from, based on the mathematical equation or expression in question. This feature was first introduced in Maple over two decades ago, and it’s one of the most beloved features of students, teachers, and new Maple users, so of course we included it in Maple Learn. The context panel means that you and your students can focus on learning math not commands.

And here’s a bonus for making it all the way through:

4. You can pull math into Maple Learn really easily using the Maple Calculator

Let’s face it, for now at least, there will always be students who will feel more comfortable doing math on paper. It’s like tomato soup and grilled cheese – some things are meant to go together. So to make the transition from paper to digital easier, students can take a picture of their problem, or even their completed handwritten solution and bring them into Maple Learn instantly. That way, they can have the comfort of paper, AND the advantages of the digital environment. (I’d say something about having their cake and eating it too, but all this talk of food is making me hungry!)

One of the things I love most about my job is working and collaborating with math teachers across the globe. Every discussion leads to additional insights into the challenges facing teachers today, and new ideas on how to make Maple and Maple Learn better. And sometimes, I even learn some math I thought I already knew!

A few months ago, I introduced Maple Learn to a friend of mine who teaches high school math in Kingston, Ontario. I showed her how she could use Maple Learn to teach many concepts during our call, including Completing the Square. I walked her through Maple Learn’s free-form canvas and explained how her students could work through a problem line-by-line just as they would in their notebooks. I highlighted the live plot window and showed how her students could graphically verify that their solution was equivalent to the initial expression. And, I demonstrated the power of Maple Learn’s intelligent context panel and how her students could check their answers algebraically. I thought I had done a good job, until she said: “Karishma, that’s not how we teach Completing the Square anymore!”. Huh! I was floored. What I had shown was the way I had learned the concept so many years ago. I was surprised to learn that there was a new way.

My friend then introduced me to Algebra Tiles and how she used it to teach Completing the Square. Once we went through a few examples, I realized that I had never fully appreciated what I was doing when I completed the square. I had memorized a series of steps without really understanding what I was trying to do. The progression of our discussion naturally led to the inevitable question: “Karishma, does Maple Learn include Algebra tiles? Because that would be a game-changer for my students. Currently, we use physical tiles, but with remote learning, we need something digital.” At that time, my answer was ‘not yet’; however, with the introduction of image support last week, I’m happy to announce that Maple Learn can support algebra tiles and other interactive supports.

Here is the Maple Learn document I created on Completing the Square using Algebra Tiles.

Feel free to change the expressions listed in the document and share it with your students. To see algebra tiles in action inside Maple Learn, take a look at the short video that I created.  If you have any suggestions for improving this application, please feel free to let me know.

Yes, that’s right! You can now add images to your Maple Learn documents! Whether you’re adding a diagram to help visualize a physics concept, inserting the logo or your school or organization, or just adding a cute selfie so that everyone knows how great you looked while making this document, you can add any image you’d like using the image icon on the toolbar. You’ll need to be logged in to access this new feature, but luckily making an account is completely free!

To insert the image, just click the image icon and select the image you want from your computer or tablet. To resize it, highlight the image and click the image icon again. You can also turn the image into a hyperlink by highlight the image and clicking the link button! Now, not only will your document look snazzy, but it can take you anywhere you’d like.

Images aren’t the only exciting new feature in Maple Learn. If you were excited by all the circles in the last set of updates, then you’re going to love this one, because we’ve introduced the Circle command! Just plug in the centre of the circle and the radius, and bam, circle. What’s more, you can easily turn your circle into an arc by adding the angle measures of the two endpoints of the arc. Infinitely customizable round objects, right at your fingertips. To learn more, check out the How-To documents Using the Circle Command and Plotting Arcs.

Ancient Greek mathematicians thought that there was nothing that couldn’t be constructed with only a compass and a straightedge. A wise math professor once tasked my class with using these same tools to draw a pretty picture. With Maple Learn’s Circle function and ability to graph straight lines, you have all the tools you need to complete this same task! We look forward to seeing the results.

As many of you are aware, the Maple Application Center is a very important resource for Maple users. It is a place for authors to share their Maple work, and for users to have access to a rich collection of over 2,500 curated Maple documents covering a wide array of topics and disciplines.

I am very pleased to announce that we have been hard at work on a new version of the Application Center, and it’s at a state where we’re ready to open it up to the public for testing. You can access the new site here: https://www.maplesoft.com/applications_beta . We are looking for feedback, so please give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Here are a few of my favorite features of the new site:

Updated Look & Feel
The interface of the current version of the Application Center has not changed in many years, and it was time for a new paint job. I think you’ll find that the new site is cleaner, modern, and more enjoyable to use.

Easier to Find the Documents you Want
The updated Application Center provides multiple new ways to find content that is relevant for you. Browse user-made collections of documents or use tags (the same tags used in MaplePrimes) to find documents for the topics you are interested in. Alternatively, you can use the search bar to quickly find documents, tags or authors.

Personalize your Experience
If you are logged-in when using the Application Center, you will be able to customize what you see by pinning your favorite collections, authors or tags to your home page.

Community Moderation & Reputation
As with MaplePrimes, the strength of the Application Center comes from the amazing community of individuals who contribute to it. In addition to submitting your own content to the Application Center, users can now edit tags and create collections of content that others can use. Similar to MaplePrimes, community moderation is restricted to members who have a sufficient reputation score. Speaking of reputation, quality contributions to MaplePrimes will now be reflected in your reputation score. When someone likes one of your submissions, your reputation will increase by 5.

There are many other great new features as well, and we have a roadmap of future updates planned that will make it even better.

I invite you to take a look at the new site and play with it. Browse some content, search, look through tags, and create some collections. Most importantly, I’m really hopeful that you will then use the comments section below to let us know what you think. Did you discover any bugs or issues? What do you like? What do you dislike? What other features would you like to see?

We are hoping to run the Beta for a period of a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to hearing and reading your thoughts. Hope you enjoy it!

https://www.maplesoft.com/applications_beta

Bryon