As part of some volunteer work for our local school. I was wondering about putting some kind of GUI (Windows) software together to guide the students through the process of factorising polynomials
e.g. a step-by-step guide of how to get from:
x**2 + 2x - 3
to (x + 3)(x - 1)
This would preferably be C# but Java is also OK.
There is commercial software that does this but it's not cheap.
Any suggestions, documentation etc.?
I'd be surprised if something like this didn't already exist. Try looking through http://www.educypedia.be/education/calculatorsalgebra.htm?
xyAlgebra is a tool that's struck me as useful, though I have yet to teach with it. I met the creator at a conference and he was very easy to talk to.
Given that the general factorisation of a polynomial is (x-A)(x-B)(X-c).... = 0 where A,B,C etc are the roots of the equation then if you are only dealing with 2nd order it would seem quicker to teach them the general solution for a quadratic equation and then plug the roots straight into the general factorisation.
Im not sure how a GUI would help with this.
If "all" you need to do is set up a step-by-step guide, would it not be sufficient to do a static Flash, HTML or even PowerPoint presentation?
If you're after an interactive application -- do you really want to teach the kids that polynomial factorization is nothing one needs to learn, since there are computer tools that can do it for you? ;)