EMS Newsletter June 2010 - European Mathematical Society ...

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Mathematics Education various countries about, or within the framework of, his theory. International conferences on ATD have been held in 2005, 2007, and 2010, each of which has gathered about a hundred researchers from Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. In some countries, including Chile and Mexico, Yves Chevallard’s work also has exerted a direct influence on curriculum development and in-service teacher training. icmi study 21: mathematics education and language diversity Around the world, mathematics is learned and taught in situations of language diversity. Whether through historical multilingualism, migration, colonization, globalization or other factors, mathematics classrooms frequently involve multiple language use, learning through second or additional languages, learning through minority or oppressed languages, or through majority or dominant languages. Increasing recognition and awareness of this longstanding reality have led to a growing body of research that seeks to understand the relationship between different facets of language diversity and mathematics learning and teaching. It is time to critically review this work, consider implications for mathematics classroom practices and set an agenda for future research. The principal aims of ICMI Study 21 “Mathematics education and language diversity” are: - To gather together a community of researchers who are currently addressing issues of language diversity as they relate to mathematics education. - To reflect on the current state of research on these issues and propose a research agenda for the future. - To disseminate findings from research to date and issues for future work to the wider mathematics education research community and to practitioners. The ICMI Study 21 “Mathematics education and language diversity” is designed to enable researchers and practitioners around the world to share research, theoretical work, project descriptions, experiences and analyses. The Study Conference will be held in São Paulo, Brazil, on 16 - 20 September 2011, the number of participants to be invited being limited to at most 120. It is hoped that the conference will attract not only established researchers but also some “newcomers” to the field and mathematics teachers with interesting and refreshing ideas or promising work in progress, as well as participants from countries usually under-represented in mathematics education research meetings. Participation in the Study Conference is only by invitation, based on a submitted contribution. People with an interest are invited to visit the website http://www.icmi-21.com and download the complete version of the discussion document. Inquiries on all aspects of the study and suggestions concerning the content of the Study Conference should be sent to both co-chairs: Mamokgethi Setati – setatrm@ unisa.ac.za or funkymaths@yahoo.co.uk, and Maria do Carmo Santos Domite – mcdomite@usp.br or mcdomite@gmail.com. ICMI Study 20 Conference postponed Given the eruption of the Islandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, the clouds of ash floating all over Europe and the chaos and almost non-existence of air traffic over Europe, the cochairs and the chair of the LOC, Alain Damlamian, Rudolf Strässer and José Francisco Rodrigues, respectively, have decided to postpone the Study Conference of ICMI Study 20 “Educational Interfaces between Mathematics and Industry (EIMI)”, planned for Lisbon for 19–23 April 2010. The Study Conference will instead take place on 11–15 October 2010 (EIMI website: http://www.cim.pt/eimi/). ESF-EMS-ERCOM Mathematics Conferences: Call for Proposals The 2010 Call for Proposals for ESF-EMS-ERCOM Mathematics Conferences to be held in 2012 is open. Details about the Call are given in http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/call-for-proposals.html For on-line submission of proposals, go to http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/call-for-proposals/framework-call-forproposals.html Submission deadline is September 15, 2010. Up to four conferences taking place in one of the participating ERCOM Research Centers will be funded. 54 EMS Newsletter June 2010
Zentralblatt MATHMLized Patrick Baier, Olaf Teschke 1. What for? MathML 1 (Mathematical Markup Language) is an XML application to describe and display mathematical content on the Web. The current standard 2.0 was defined in 2001. With the release of the first version as a W3C recommendation as early as 1998, it may be fairly considered as a Methusalem by Web measures; but only recent versions of the most common browsers support the MathML standard. Old Zentralblatt interface: Bulky tex code. There are several reasons for this rather slow progress. Mathematics content might not have been considered to be commercially interesting by browser developers. Mathematicians were early adopters of the Web, relying on the established TeX/LaTeX formats. Enhanced display, if considered to be necessary, was usually obtained by small solutions like conversion of elements to html if possible (e.g. subscript and superscript) or the integration of small formula images; alternative formats (dvi, ps, pdf) were often provided for convenience. In general, mathematicians were quite satisfied with the language they were used to and didn’t care too much about presentation. Moreover, the conversion of the existing TeX/ LaTeX corpus to MathML is non-trivial and is an ongoing challenge (probably, no one would like to create the XML directly). However, with the progress of Web mathematics – and especially its interactive components – the ad- Zentralblatt Corner vantage of a common XML standard becomes more evident. Mathematical software is widely used and it is obviously useful to have a common interface with Web presentations. Apart from the enhanced readability, automatic processing is supported. Search and retrieval of mathematics content can be enhanced significantly. As a small but important example, MathML makes mathematics content barrier-free: visually impaired users may access formulas via standard screen-readers. 2. How does one convert (masses of) TeX/LaTeX? When you set up a mathematics blog today, it is usually not much effort to install MathML via available plugins. Even converting older content can be done with a reasonable effort, given that a single user won’t change New Zentralblatt interface: Direct MathML display. his (La)TeX environment too frequently. However, a digital library or mathematics database may face difficult problems in the conversion of existing content. There may be a large variety of styles and macros, even a change in TeX/LaTeX standards. Though many approaches exist for the conversion, there is no general optimal solution and one will need to check which existing tool may be the most convenient solution for a specific problem. There is limited data available for the comparison of the existing tools. H. Stamerjohans et al. (2009; Zbl 1 www.w3.org/Math/ EMS Newsletter June 2010 55
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NEWSLETTER OF THE EUROPEAN MATHEMAT
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Editorial Team European Editor-in-C
Page 5 and 6: Editorial The 20 th Anniversary of
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Page 9: sponsible for the respective commit
Page 13 and 14: Introducing EuDML The European Digi
Page 15 and 16: Some of these allowed participants
Page 17 and 18: Table 2: Estimation of existing DML
Page 19 and 20: Promoting Mathematics 1 Ronnie Brow
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Page 23 and 24: algebra: potential descriptive tool
Page 25 and 26: MacPherson receives the prize from
Page 27 and 28: Israel Moiseevich Gelfand Vladimir
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Page 51 and 52: ceeds in being a seminary for resea
Page 53 and 54: The Johann Radon Institute for Comp
Page 55: ICMI column - http://www.mathunion.
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Page 65 and 66: In a text readable even by a novice
Page 67 and 68: New books published by the New! 20%
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