Welcome back to another Maple Learn blog post! We know it is midterm season, and we’re here to help. Maple Learn can be used to study in many different ways, and I’m sure you’ve already tried some of them. One way is making your notes in Learn, or making your own examples, but have you taken a look at our document gallery? We have a wide range of subjects and types of documents, so let’s take a look at some documents!

I’m going to start by talking about the documents in the gallery which are content learning focused, then move into practice problems and a special document for studying.

First, let’s look at some calculus content learning documents! The calculus collection is our largest, reaching over 250 documents and still counting. The two documents I’ve picked from this category are our documents on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus and a Visualization of Partial Derivatives. See a screenshot of the visualisations for each document below!

Are there other subjects you’d like to look at? Well, take a look at our list below!

Algebra: Double Vertical Asymptote Slider Graph

Graph Theory: Dijkstra’s Algorithm for Shortest Paths

Economics: Increase in Demand in a Market

Chemistry: Combined Gas Law Examples

Biology: Dihybrid Cross Punnett Squares

Physics: Displacement, Velocity, and Acceleration

We have many other subjects for documents, of course, but they wouldn’t fit in this post! Take a look at our entire document gallery for the others.

Another class of documents we have are the practice problems. Perfect for studying, we have practice problems ranging from practicing the four color theorem, to practicing mean, median, and mode, to even practicing dihybrid cross genotypes!

Now for, in my opinion, our most useful document for the midterm season: A study time calculator!

This document allows you to put in the amount you want to study each class over the day or week, and breaks down visually what that would look like.  

This allows you to make sure you’re taking enough time for breaks and sleep, and not overloading yourself. Feel free to customise the document to make it work better for you and your study style!

We hope you enjoyed this post, and that we could help you study! Let us know below if there’s anything else you’d want to see to support you during midterms and exams.

Have you heard the news yet? Maple Learn has had a major update! You may be wondering what this means, and what all the shiny new features are. Let’s go through them together.

First, as with many updates, we’ve improved performance with Maple Learn. Longer documents will load and perform faster, requiring less computing power for operations, and as a result your browser will be more responsive. Performance on Chromebooks is also improved.

Operations that previously would have needed to be refreshed now automatically calculate. Up until now, if you performed a menu operation on an expression and then changed the value of the expression, the result would turn orange to warn you that the result was no longer valid. You would then have to refresh manually. Now, this is no longer the case, the orange refresh button has been removed from Maple Learn, and results are never out of date.

The plot window, inline plots, and the context panel are all resizable now. This means that, for example, if you’re presenting using Maple Learn, you can enlarge the plot window to be the focus of the presentation, and shrink the context panel out of the way. Take a look at the difference, with our animation of it in action!

Sliders are also more flexible now! Bounds for sliders can be expressed in terms of variables or symbols like π. As well, you can now animate sliders, animating the graph. This allows for more interactivity in documents. See the old view on the left, and the new view on the right! Make sure to take a look at an example of the animated slider below the views as well. 

You can also now snap groups to a grid, allow them to automatically adjust their position as other groups adjust. This ensures better alignment of groups. It also allows you to easily rearrange elements of your documents.

Next, Maple Learn could handle 3D plots before, but now Maple Learn supports 3D parametric plots!

Finally, Maple Learn now has printing! This means you can print out your Maple Learn documents, with two options: to print just the canvas, or to print just the plot. This was requested by many users.

Multiple selection is also possible, allowing you to select multiple cells in a group by holding down the Ctrl/Command key while clicking and dragging.

That’s all for the updates in this version, but keep an eye out for our other updates! For more details, please take a look at our What’s New In Maple Learn page. We hope you enjoy our new features, and let us know if there are any more features you’d like to see in Maple Learn below.

Have you ever wondered about the people behind the scenes at Maplesoft? What about the students who help design the products?

This week, we thought we’d introduce ourselves. We are some of the co-op students at Maplesoft, who in between studying believe that Math Matters.

I’ll go first. My name is Pleiades, I’m 21 and my pronouns are they/them. I am a product management intern at Maplesoft, working with Maple Learn and Maple Calculator. I'm not a math student, but my favorite thing about math is how expressive its language is. Mathematical equations and symbols can be used to express incredibly complex ideas, and even if you don't understand the sense, you can still read the "words". My favorite thing about working for Maplesoft is the flexibility. I have many different types of tasks, and I’m able to learn so many different things.

Keep reading, and find out more about my fellow students below!

Quality Assurance:

Hello, my name is Matilda (she/her)! I am 19 years old, studying physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo. I am part of the QA team here at Maplesoft, working as a quality assurance analyst co-op. I find math fascinating as it is a broad field that can be challenging, but also invokes a lot of creativity. As I am a new addition at Maplesoft, I am excited to work with the various Maple products.  I am looking forward to meeting new students and individuals, and to help grow not only myself but the company further. 

My name is Kat, I’m 20 and my pronouns are she/her. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and rock climbing. I am a QA analyst at Maplesoft, mostly working on Maple 2023. I am a student at UW studying mathematical physics and I would like to also minor in astronomy/astrophysics. My favorite thing about math is the objectivity of it, how there is a set structure and logical solution to any problem. I especially like calculus and trigonometry. I’m excited to be at Maplesoft because I will be learning everything about Maple from the inside perspective, which is used in many 300 and 400-level applied math courses that I will be taking at UW. I also really like the office environment and my coworkers.

Development:

Hey, my name is Paul C, I am 22 years old, and I am working as a Web and Mobile developer with Steve Metzger for the next 4 months. At the University of Waterloo, I study Mathematical Physics, though, I love the Computational Mathematics courses I’ve taken at UWaterloo. As for the world of Mathematics, I have always been fond of how everything can be thoroughly proven through basic arguments and logic. I am very excited to be working at Maplesoft, as I have for a long time been intrigued as to how Maple, Symbolab, and WolframAlpha function. So, this position is finally giving me the opportunity to truly explore how such software is developed.

Sales:

My name is Robin, I’m 21 years old and my pronouns are he/him. I am currently working as a Business Operations Analyst at Maplesoft, working with the sales department. I am a candidate of Bachelors of Business Administration at Wilfrid Laurier University with a minor in Economics and a specialization in Finance. My favorite thing about math is how it is present everywhere. Numbers help us understand world and Math helps us understand the number. My favorite part about working at Maplesoft is the extremely positive culture that we work in. Rather than competing with other people in the department, sales team has a very healthy approach towards work and are always there to help out each other.

Content Creation:

My name is Nikolas (he/him), I’m 20 years old and I’m an undergraduate physics student at the University of Waterloo. I’m part of the math content team at Maplesoft, focussing on creating new content for Maple Learn. The thing I like most about math is that while it may be a very objective discipline, it still involves an incredible amount of creativity. My favourite part of working at Maplesoft is the chance to share what I’ve learned about physics and math through Maple Learn content.

Good morning, afternoon, or evening!  I'm Miles (age 23, he/him), and I'm a UW mathematics student majoring in combinatorics and optimization and minoring in biology.  This term at Maplesoft, I work in content development for Maple Learn, which involves creating examples for the Maple Learn Document Gallery, working on special requests for users, and more.  My favorite thing about math is the fact that it is the analytical backbone of so many other areas of research.  You may think of biological research as performing experiments or medical trials, but behind the scenes, data entry and analysis are key to finding valuable conclusions and discoveries.  Biology is my particular favorite, of course, but there are countless fields of study with these mathematical aspects.

I'm looking forward to expanding my skillset and repertoire of tasks at Maplesoft.  This is my second term working here; last term I got my bearings as a content developer and am looking forward to so much more.  More advanced documents and workshops/presentations are on the horizon! :D

If you haven’t seen the posts already, the Maple Conference is coming up on the 2^nd and 3^rd of November! Last year’s art competition was very popular, so this year, not only are we holding the Maple Art and Creative Works Exhibit again, but we’ve decided to extend the art competition to include a Maple Learn Art Showcase!

You may be wondering what math art can be created in Maple Learn, and what the requirements are for the conference. Let’s address the first question first.

The best way to learn what kind of math art can be made is by taking a look at our Maple Learn Art document collection! This collection is in the Maple Learn document gallery, and includes art created by users with different levels of math and Maple Learn knowledge.

Many examples of art are shown in the collection, but take a look at this art piece, which shows a fun character made with functions!

We not only have static art, but animations as well. Take a look at this document, which shows an animated flower and bee, all created with math and Maple Learn.

Now for the conference requirements. The submission requirement date is October 14^th 2022, and there’s only one criterion for submission:

• Art must be created in Maple Learn, and submissions must include the Maple Learn document.

Feel free to include any extra information about yourself and your artwork directly in the document. You can share your submission by using the share icon in the top right of the Maple Learn UI. This will create a URL, which can be sent to gallery@maplesoft.com. Don’t forget to include your name in the emailed submission! Please contact us if you’re unsure about any of the criteria, or if you have any other questions!

It may seem overwhelming, but remember: submitting something gives you a chance to share your art with the world and not submitting removes that chance! If you'd like more information about the Maple Learn Art Showcase or the Maple Art and Creative Works Exhibit, please check out our page on submissions for the art gallery on the Maplesoft website, or check out this example submission. See you all next time!

Welcome back to another blog post, Maple Learn enthusiasts! Today we’re going to go through a concept and see what documents are available to help you learn the concept. What concept? Blood typing!

You may have gotten your blood tested before, but do you know the science behind blood types? Have you ever thought about it, even? Well, if not, you’re in the right place! Let’s take a look at some of the concepts you need to know before looking deeper into blood typing.

First, what are genotypes and phenotypes? Did you notice those terms had links attached to them? We have Maple Learn documents on this topic, shown below. Take a moment to read them over before we continue, but to summarize: A genotype is the genetic makeup within a trait, whereas a phenotype is the displayed trait. Another important term to recognize is allele – the specific variations of genes that are involved in the genotype.

The next thing to review is Punnett Squares, and the document is also shown below. Review this one too, to learn how to examine genetic combinations! Take a good look at the tables being used, as well, as an example of a creative use of a typically mathematical feature.

Now let’s finally dig into the blood types. Humans have 4 different blood types (excluding the Rhesus factor – but we won’t be talking about that today): A, B, AB, and O. A and B alleles are represented with an “I” with a superscript A or B, respectively. O is represented with “i”. Remember, a full genotype has two alleles, so someone with the blood type O would be represented as “ii” in their genotype. Can you read the Punnett Square below?

To extend your learning, take a look at our blood typing quiz! This quiz allows you to practice making Punnett Squares on paper, in order to figure out the likelihood of a phenotype (the blood type) given the genotype of the parents.

We hope you enjoyed the concept walkthrough! Please let us know if there are any other concepts you’d like to see explained through Maple Learn documents. Until next time!