The principal purpose of COW is to provide you, the student or interested
user, with the opportunity to learn and practice problems in calculus (and in
the future other topics in mathematics) in a friendly environment via the
internet. The most important feature of the COW is that you get to know whether
your answer is correct almost immediately. It is as if you had a tutor looking
over your shoulder and helping you along as you work. This will be true no
matter where you are or what computer you use, as long as it is connected to the
internet and has a web browser.
The student component of COW (called the Manager) generates calculus examples
and exercises in "modules" for studying, tutoring and practice. A number of the
modules allow you to experiment by letting you change values or parameters in a
function or graph and then see the effect. These modules are called "hands on"
modules, and are marked with an asterisk. The component of the COW accessible by
instructors (called the Reporter) handles assignment and automatic grading of
homework, reporting on student work and class management. |
