• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.351-362
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• 2012

Until the 1950s, linear algebra was considered only as one of abstract and advanced mathematics subject among in graduate mathematics courses, mainly dealing with module in algebra. Since the 1960s, it has been a main subject in undergraduate mathematics education because matrices has been used all over. In Korea, it was considered as a course only for mathematics major students until 1980s. However, now it is a subject for all undergraduate students including natural science, engineering, social science since 1990s. In this paper, we investigate the early history of linear algebra and its development from a historical perspective and mathematicians who made contributions. Secondly, we explain why linear algebra became so popular in college mathematics education in the late 20th century. Contributions of Chinese and H. Grassmann will be extensively examined with many newly discovered facts.

• Korean Journal of Mathematics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.503-521
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• 2013

For over 20 years, the issue of using an adequate CAS tool in teaching and learning of linear algebra has been raised constantly. And a variety of CAS tools were introduced in many linear algebra textbooks. In Korea, however, because of some realistic problems, they have not been introduced in the class and the theoretical aspect of linear algebra has been focused on in teaching and learning of it. In this paper, we suggest Sage as an alternative for CAS tools overcoming the problems mentioned above. And, we introduce full contents for linear algebra and matrix calculator that Sage was used to develop. Taking advantage of them, almost all the concepts of linear algebra can be easily covered and the size of matrices can be expanded without difficulty.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2013

This work started with recent students' conception on Linear Algebra. We were trying to help their understanding of Linear Algebra concepts by adding visualization tools. To accomplish this, we have developed most of needed tools for teaching of Linear Algebra class. Visualizing concepts of Linear Algebra is not only an aid for understanding but also arouses students' interest on the subject for a better comprehension, which further helps the students to play with them for self-discovery. Therefore, visualizing data should be prepared thoroughly rather than just merely understanding on static pictures as a special circumstance when we would study visual object. By doing this, we carefully selected GeoGebra which is suitable for dynamic visualizing and Sage for algebraic computations. We discovered that this combination is proper for visualizing to be embodied and gave a variety of visualizing data for undergraduate mathematics classes. We utilized GeoGebra and Sage for dynamic visualizing and tools used for algebraic calculation as creating a new kind of visual object for university math classes. We visualized important concepts of Linear Algebra as much as we can according to the order of the textbook. We offered static visual data for understanding and studied visual object and further prepared a circumstance that could create new knowledge. We found that our experience on visualizations in Linear Algebra using Sage and GeoGebra to our class can be effectively adopted to other university math classes. It is expected that this contribution has a positive effect for school math education as well as the other lectures in university.