Open Source Sharable Applet (OSSLET) Collection - Welcome

Welcome to the MathDL OSSLETS collection

The first three osslets (Open Source, Sharable Mathlets) use Macromedia Shockwave and Macromedia Flash. Free players are readily available for both and many Internet users already use them. We expect to include Java based osslets in the future.

The first osslet, multiParameterAnimation, can be used to create live graphs and animations of one or more functions that depend on several parameters. Students can change the values of any of the parameters or they can animate the graph(s) to show what happens as any one of the parameters changes.

The second osslet, linearTransformation, can be used to explore visually the effects of a linear transformation of the plane given by a matrix equation y = Ax. A variation of this osslet can be used to explore a two dimensional linear system of differential equations.

The third osslet, PlanarGraphs, can be used to study planarity for graphs. Students can attempt to show that a graph is planar by moving its nodes.

Like all osslets, these osslets include ready-to-use sample curriculum materials and they are designed so that you can easily build Web pages using your favorite authoring environment (for example, Microsoft FrontPage) that use these osslets. You do not need to know any programming. Osslets are open source in two senses. First, the sample curriculum materials can be modified and built upon. Second, the Shockwave, Flash, or Java components are designed so their action is readily modified without any reprogramming. The source code is also included for those who do want to do some reprogramming. Permission is explicity granted for re-use and modification of anything in the OSSLET collection. The editors encourage to both use these OSSLETs and submit your own OSSLETs for publication on this site.