Let's save between $650 to $1000 today. We can retouch photographs or produce digital artwork with a free product that rivals its professional counterpart: Adobe Photoshop.

(By the way, I was corrected on my spelling yesterday. It's LyX and LaTeX.)

GIMP

Not too long ago, I started taking digital pictures. I went from taking maybe one roll of pictures in a year to taking hundreds.  As you take more and more pictures, you start to notice that they're just not right. Perhaps if you could crop a picture, you could focus on the cool part. Maybe if you could rebalance the colors. Maybe someone in your family photo is wearing an offensive t-shirt. Might be nice to hide that ugly message.

There is a famous case of an Olympic photo of a hurdler who looked like she had impaled herself on a radio antenna. The controversy came because the antenna was airbrushed out. (This was in the eighties, before digital photography.) Purists claimed that it altered reality. The truth was, a security guard stood behind her in the picture with his radio. The photographer just happened to be in the right position that it looked like she fell on the antenna. I would argue that the original photo was more misleading, especially with the expression on her face.

So it's not a new technique. Now, however, it's a technique that the common man can do. Probably the software you use to upload pictures to your computer has some rudimentary features such as cropping and color adjusting. To really do a good job, though, you need good tools. That's where the GIMP comes in.

It is a viable alternative to Adobe Photoshop. In fact, it is so much so that many photographers use it instead of the Adobe version. Its great weakness is one which it shares with Adobe: there are so many features that the beginner is overwhelmed.

I do all of my photo retouching with the GIMP. Check out some of my work on Flickr.

Scribus

I want to briefly mention this product because I don't use it myself. LyX, which I described yesterday, is a great product for page layout. However, it is useless for graphics intensive layout such as you find in a brochure or a teen magazine. Microsoft Word will do these projects, but it won't do them very well.

Professionals turn to Adobe InDesign, a $750 product. A very viable open source alternative to Adobe InDesign is Scribus. From what I understand, its features are very comparable. Better, the price is right!

Today, I want to save you $800. You will make gorgeous pages and beautiful mathematics because of what you're about to read. Even if you don't write math and science pieces, you may still find that what I'm going to show you creates wonderful page layout.

I began this series on open source software by describing OpenOffice. During the past year, I found a piece of software that has almost entirely supplanted my use of OpenOffice. It does beautiful presentations and amazing text layout. However, it is a more specialized piece of software that the common user may not need.

LYX

I discovered LYX because I teach math and science and need to use a lot of mathematics in my writing. The formula editor in Microsoft Office is a slow because it is entirely by mouse. The one in OpenOffice is a little easier. It allows either awkward mouse usage or keyboard input. Unfortunately, the output of either program is unattractive and awkward to work with...especially when making a presentation slide show.

I learned about LATEX, a language for page layout, that does gorgeous formulas. I'll review it later this week, but what scared me away was that it has a steep learning curve. That's when I discovered LYX, a friendly graphical front-end to LATEX.

LATEX is a terrifying programming language that produces gorgeous page layout. It makes books, letters, presentation slideshows, articles, and attractive mathematics. LYX hides the programming language behind a friendly front-end that feels a lot like a word processor. Better still, when you're ready, you can use LATEX to access advanced or arcane functions.

LYX is at first uncomfortable for the word processor user. There are no options for choosing font or font size. There are only labels. Every single piece of text in the document is labeled according to what its job is. It is "standard", "Section", "subsection", "margin note" or one of the other options. When you print the document, LYX then decides what it should look like based on its function. This is just like the styles that are in most word processors (the ones most people don't use). LYX forces their use.

As the user, you can install different templates. If you're really amazing, you can even make your own! If you're making a book, there are at least 5 different templates. I've fallen in love with "Memoir." That means you can easily play with layout and try different templates.

What if you're doing a slideshow? LYX requires a bit of LATEX knowledge, but it's easy. There is the Beamer class, Prosper, FoilTex, Slideshow, and a few others. I like Beamer, but hey all look good. I output them as .pdf files which I can use on almost any computer. I also use the article option to create handouts. I get transitions, special effects, and gorgeous formulas. Now, this doesn't cure what has come to be known as "bad powerpoint." That's another story and no piece of software can cure it. That's a design issue.

LYX plays well with others. The files are plain ASCII text, so they are small. The formatting commands are put right in the text. LYX can output documents to a number of different formats. Most often, I use .pdf and .html. I can use .txt, .rtf, and several others. It does not play well with Microsoft Word, but a LYX user probably won't much care.

LYX excels at cross referencing, indexing, and creating a table of contents. In my own writing, I create modular documents. That means I can assemble the pieces into master documents in many different ways (more on that later this week). LYX makes it easy and it ensure that all my links and cross references work.

There is one final point that will cause word processor users don't like about LYX. What you see on the screen is not what you will see on the printed page. On the screen, margin notes look like another paragraph (in a box). On the page, they are in the margin. On the screen, a figure may be placed in one place. On the page, it is somewhere else. On the screen, there is no way to judge how many pages a document will require.

This doesn't matter! After you use it for a while, you will recognize that LYX was programmed by experts in page design. It "knows" what makes a page look good. It takes care of hyphenation, the spread of words on the page, justification, and placement of text objects. There are consistent rules for placing every single element. After some frustrating learning experiences, you discover how to work with it. It will do a consistently better job than you (unless you are trained in page design).

Look at it this way. In a larger business, the boss can't do all jobs well. He may be an accounting geek, but he's no good at public relations or advertising design. He hires specialists to accomplish these tasks. LYX is your specialist on page layout. You are the expert on the words. Let LYX place them on the page in an attractive way. It's like making the step from a small business to a larger business. You have to give up some control for better results. Just hire good people you can trust.

LYX is "good people."

By the way, I've saved you a fortune today...depending on what you see as the competitor to Lyx. If you think it's Microsoft office, I've saved you $150 compared to the cheap version. If you think it's Scientific Workplace, I've saved you $850. If you think it's Adobe InDesign (and I would disagree) I've saved you $700. I'll enjoy the check. My students tell me I really need to update my wardrobe.

I want to save you hundreds of your dollars. If you're in a position to make software decisions for your school (or business), I can save you thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Feel free to send me part the savings. The magic word is "FOSS" which stands for "Free and Open Source Software."

In my personal life and my professional life, I use mostly FOSS. I use a few proprietary programs for various reasons, but most of the rest of it is FOSS. In all honesty, I do use a few proprietary programs: I love my Mac. However, this post and the next few are about FOSS. Try it! As I noted in my last 3 entries, we need to think outside the box.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice was my first introduction to FOSS. When you hear its name, think "Microsoft Office." It's a suite of programs that include a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database, a drawing program, and presentation software. I won't try to compare it to the Microsoft product. There are plenty of emotional arguments about that out there...and a few factual ones.

I will say that users of office software, either Microsoft or OpenOffice, rarely use even a fraction of what the software has available. For a huge example: how many of my readers use the "styles" on their word processors? This feature is a huge labor saver. It improves consistency of documents, portability, and it makes it easier to edit and change documents. Your boss wants headings to be blue? One quick change if you used styles.

There are a lot of other features you don't use because you don't need them. Many of us entirely avoid the entire database program in their office suite. People who could be well served by a database, use the spreadsheet instead. Of course, many of us (including me) don't most of the functions in the spreadsheet.

You probably won't miss most of the features in Microsoft Office if you switch to OpenOffice. You may have to relearn the interface, but it really isn't that different. Ever move to a new town? Migrating to a new piece of software is much easier. Try it out. The price is right.

I'll offer you a discount on that first check you're sending me. The cheap version of Microsoft office costs only $150. The professional version costs $500. By that logic, I've saved most of you $150. That should pay for the new graphing calculator I really want.

More Software

Just a quick preview: over the next few days, I want to note a few more programs to try out. At the end, I want to do two things I didn't do when I covered this topic next year. First, I want to talk about use of this software in school. Second, I want to talk about familiarity vs. functionality.

The software I plan to cover includes: LYX, KeyJNote, Dr. Geo, GIMP, Inkscape, Linux, LATEX, Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, F-Spot, Xournal, Tellico, Scribus, and Moodle. I have a few days, so I may think of some other software. Save some money.

Stop looking at school as vocational training! As I mentioned before in parts 1 and 2, to look at school from a purely vocational viewpoint is to lose out on important skills.

Physics is one of those great courses that teaches about reading graphs, looking for patterns, mathematical thinking, and provides a good basis for concepts in the other sciences. It's a good course for understanding things. It's a great thinking course. (That's where I was headed with my last entry...though I got sort of wrapped up in roundabouts.)

The arts have gotten short shrift so far. That's a lack of familiarity on my part. However, one of the important skills in our world is creativity. Richard Feynman used creativity to come up with the explanation for the Challenger accident. Einstein broke out of the mechanical model in Physics with creativity. Remember, creativity is originality.

What the arts do is provide an outlet for creativity. They allow "outside the box" thinking. When Richard Feynman decided that the rubber o-rings got too cold, that was WAY outside the box. There are a lot of people out there who are not willing to think outside of the box (I didn't say not capable). This is a lack of confidence or laziness. Art and music help develop the confidence. (They won't cure laziness.)

Believe it or not, I can draw...badly, but I can do it. I can do photography, I can retouch pictures, and I can create passable results. I write science fiction as a hobby. It's not real good, but I don't care. I even blog (to my audience of 3). These things are all examples that someone like me can be creative, despite a lack of talent. Too many of us avoid creativity or outside the box thinking because of a lack of talent, or perceived lack of talent.

Take that art and music so that you can create despite a lack of talent. (Or, better still, discover a talent you never knew you had.)

Yesterday, I outlined a Business Week article and spoke on the importance of general skills. Today, I wanted to look at a specific application of Physics that could face any ordinary citizen. Imagine your town wants to redo an intersection to improve traffic flow.

Let me describe a terrifying moment in my driving life. I was about to move to North Dakota. I drove down town to pick up a few last minute things for my trip. At that time, my hometown still had only one stoplight. It was one of the older style that ran on a timer, regardless of traffic. I happened to stop right at the red light, so I had a front row seat. When the light turned green, something made me stay in place. A car to my right decided to run the red light. Another car collided with it. Had I gone, I'd have hit the car that ran the red light.

Now the accident isn't really the point of the story. The point is the frustration of a red light intersection, especially at a point like this where two busy highways cross in the center of town. Cars sit at wait, even if there is no traffic going through the light. At this intersection, it was possible to wait through two light changes. In college, I even did a computer simulation of red lights to illustrate how they bunch traffic up and slow it down.

Now, suppose I could just pull through the intersection (unless a car was coming). I would turn right, travel around a circle, and get out where I wanted to. Such a structure is called a roundabout. If a yield sign were put at every entry into the roundabout, traffic could usually flow smoothly.  In fact, this traffic structure has been quite successful in the UK. Look for the "magic roundabout" in this Wikipedia article.

However, just try getting one into an American city. Americans are scared of them because they are unfamiliar and because America has tried them before...badly. Such an intersection has many advantages, but it will be fought tooth and nail. However, this is a great chance to use a little Physics. It's very simple Physics, and it goes to show that science is a great general skill. A blogger in Anaheim, CA did a very basic analysis of stoplights and fuel efficiency.

It is a simple example of how a little understanding of Physics can help taxpayers make intelligent decisions on the things they are going to pay for with their own taxes.

Now, I've gotten a bit long, so I'll finish the science and arts in yet another post.

It's quite common that a student or parent will claim that a particular subject isn't important. The student in question doesn't need it for what he plans to do. Oddly, this usually goes along with difficulty in the class. The future truck driver doesn't express this complaint over the home-ec class he has to take. Perhaps he plans to sew new seat covers for his semi?

One of the common majors for college students is business. Suppose you were planning to open a business (or work in someone else's business). You will probably need some specialized skills, but there are some important general skills you will need too. Business Week recently did a piece in which they recommended some classes. Among them: English, psychology, foreign language, economics, and statistics.

At the moment, students seem to have a very vocational focus. As I noted, that is sometimes just to avoid a "tough" course. A lot of it comes because students lack the maturity to see the value of other courses. That's why they need good guidance from teachers and parents. Successful people call on a lot of skills.

Communication is vital. This is the importance of English and Speech courses. In fact, I advise my students to get involved in Speech. Foreign language is good for international business, but it's also good for communication. A good foreign language course forces you to think through how you are communicating. An economics course, as opposed to accounting, teaches about the long-term view. People who live in the moment don't succeed long in business. Those who take the long-term view can ride out the failures and take successes in stride. Naturally, mathematics is important because it teaches students to see things in numbers. Students learn to see mathematical trends when they take the more advanced math courses.

The Business Week article goes into more depth on all these courses.

Tomorrow I want to finish up this topic by talking about science, music, art, and agriculture. That's actually the one I've been researching!

Today I made a guest post on the blog So You Want to Teach? It's called 10 Reasons to Love Rural Schools. As any regular reader knows, I love rural America.

I'm in the process of writing an entry for this blog, but I'm still doing the research. I'm reading about stoplights, traffic circles, and Physics. Hopefully it turns out. I keep getting distracted, though. The traffic information is interesting.

I'm about to pick my Calculus book for next year. I want to recheck a few things, but I think I've made my selection.

The winner is Gilbert Strang's Calculus. Allow me to summarize its good points:

• It is available online for anyone. This is great because I can see everything and my students can access it from anywhere without lugging a great beastly book. I wish more textbooks would do this!
• The hard copy is relatively inexpensive.
• It's an incredibly readable book. I got caught up in a few of the discussions as I perused the book. This is a book that the untrained reader can understand.
• It recognizes the value of technology. Unfortunately, the technology is out of date, but I have a baseline for my own creations. Were I to rewrite these pieces, I'd be less specific to one technology and be more general.
• It covers all of the material it should cover. (and then some)
• It covers the graphical and mathematical link.
• It is well reviewed.

Now, no textbook is perfect. This one suffers several faults. The first is the technology section really is out of date. The second is that it doesn't seem to do enough with numerical methods in Calculus. (This is linked to the older technology.) Finally, I fear that this may be its final version.

Since I've given links to Amazon for the other books, here is Strang's Amazon link.

Other Textbooks

I did look at a few other books. I will disregard the really bad books and focus on the others that were in the running. I actually have hopes that I'm wrong in some way. Here they are, in no particular order.

Finney, Demana, et al with Calculus: Graphical, Numerical, Algebraic

This was a good book I learned about through recommendation. It does as the title promises. Problems in the book cover all three methods of problem solving. The book lends itself well to technology as well. In fact, the authors claim it was one of the first to use graphing calculators. (I don't know enough to evaluate that claim.)

The reading is concise and clear. It is much more "mathematical" than Strang's book, and this was a strike against it. Were I teaching a college course, this would be less of a strike. This is a nice smaller book. A college could make a one-year Calculus sequence from it.

I also saw a disconnect between the reading and the problems. While I do believe students should apply what they have learned, I think that the book expects them to make too many leaps.

Larson, Hostetler, Edwards Calculus of a Single Variable

This book was quite mathematical. Since I am teaching high school students, I see that as a drawback. To prepare students for college, they need to understand the material. I don't think a high school student could easily understand this book.

Other than that, what a great book! It's well written, it's thorough, the problems fit well with the readings, and technology may easily be integrated. Were I to criticize, I might say that it does not have enough of numerical problems.

Each section is followed by many, many problems. The teacher has great flexibility in choosing what to assign. If a class needs lots of practice, it is there. If not, there are some great applications in the chapter. The teacher can differentiate with this book.

Stewart with Calculus

I used this book as a student (an older version). It has changed a bit. Stewart seems to enjoy issuing frequent revisions of his text. He also issues several versions of it. It's a popular book, and I found the most reviews with this text, especially when I checked older versions.

Honestly, I am biased. I remember my frustration with this text. It is at a very high level. In my first college Calculus course, the professor would start class with a prayer. This was followed with, "Any questions on the homework?" That was it. He did not teach at all. This forced me into an intimate acquaintance with the textbook. It is hard to read. I remember my mind swimming around delta and epsilon early on. While reviewing the book as a teacher, my mind did the same thing!

I think Stewart would be good for someone with a strong mathematical background. Of all the books I looked at, Stewart was by far the worst offender in this regard. High school students need context and they need concrete explanation.

Experts solve problems differently than students. To the expert in Calculus, delta and epsilon, limits, and derivatives all go together. To the student, these are three unique topics. Stewart is written well for those who automatically think mathematically. This is what took it out of the running for me.

I did like its selection of problems and its layout.

Saxon Calculus

I saved this book for last. It failed to be a finalist for reasons unrelated to the book. I'll just be mean and identify this as belonging to the company that wanted to "investigate me." It should not be this difficult to get an examination copy. By the way, it's a week later, and they're still not done investigating. Sorry folks, you're out of the running.

Now I do know Saxon. It is worth analyzing their methods because they really are different from anything else out there. I know without looking that this book will cover everything I could possibly need. The company is meticulous about that.

Saxon is based on review and repetition. I may learn to do derivatives of linear equations today. I will practice one or two, but the rest of my homework will be from earlier sections. I also know that I will probably find the derivative of a linear function in one problem on every homework problem from now to the end of the year.

Saxon books are not arranged in units. There is no order. Each section jumps from topic to topic with no relation to the first. Math is learned by practice.

I really liked this when I taught a group of low-skill math students in Algebra I. Repetition was great for them. It's boring or even insulting to more advanced students, at least to the degree that Saxon takes it.

Students are taught to recognize cue words in word problems and to run through mechanical solutions. I don't think that Saxon works well for the better student who needs more.

There are a lot of failing rural schools. Unfortunately, they do not get the press that inner city schools get. National reporters live in cities, so that is what they are familiar with and what they can access easily and still sleep in their own beds. Of course, there are so many stereotypes about rural America that fit right in with failing schools. The failing inner city schools work well because they often provide a great contrast to the wealthy school elsewhere in the same place.

I care about inner city schools, but I don't have anything intelligent to say about them. I'm 100% rural in my experience. I've only visited inner city areas by accident, once in college when some friends took a wrong turn in Pittsburgh and more recently when I visited Rapid City, SD. That last was a joke!

Rural schools fail for a many of the same reasons as inner city schools: poverty, culture, family problems, isolation, and lack of opportunity. Nevertheless, there are a lot of successful schools in rural environments with no advantages.

"These kids will never do anything."

Some teachers actually believe that because the kids live in Goatfart, IA, they're not going to go anywhere with their lives. Apparently they're stupid because they're rural or because they're from a farm or what have you. I've met these teachers and I've lived close to schools that believe this. These teachers and schools won't challenge kids because they don't think the kids will go anywhere.

Science News recently noted that the attitude of teachers is a big part of rural school success. I would add that it's part of the success of any school.

My own school is rural. The district covers over 1000 square miles and has only about 450 students. As I've noted earlier this week, we're adding Calculus to our curriculum. We're doing this because our kids will accomplish things with their lives. We're not a perfect rural school, but we believe in our kids.

Culture

When I go to meetings and classes in the cities, I always run into a teacher who is happy to tell me why he or she won't teach in a rural school. I'll set aside the ones who don't want to live in a small town and focus on the ones who have stereotypes. Some people believe that rural people are isolated, have no ambition, and know nothing about the outside world.

This culture exists. I teach students like this. However, most people use this only as cover. They really are curious, but it's easier to let life wash over them. Rather than confess laziness, they claim to take pride in ignorance. I've found these kids can be reached by asking them to do things and use things. Some respond wonderfully just because I like them (or pretend I do). If I assumed they were ignorant because of where they  live, they would get away with their laziness.

There is a big world out there and most people are curious about it...even if they pretend they are not or pretend that they're too stupid to comprehend it. Sometimes, they've picked up this attitude from family. Remember, these are human beings created in God's image. Let's not treat them like they're ignorant, even if they want us to.

Poverty

Poverty is tough. Some kids rise from it and accomplish things. In other cases, it continues for generation after generation. So what makes kids from the same background different?

Kids who pull out of poverty often have someone in their lives who encouraged them, did not accept excuses, and believed in them. This fits in nicely with what I've said earlier. If it's not a family member, it may well be a teacher.

Now poverty can also bring problems of a full stomach. In many areas, poverty is accompanied by obesity (that's statistics), but it can also be accompanied by kids who aren't eating. Some schools have implemented breakfasts, cafeteria lunches, and even boxed lunches to take home. If you talk to soldiers who have returned from basic training, most recall at least one recruit who loved basic because he had real meals and actual clothes.

Schools may be the only secure place a student has. Poverty can be accompanied by family violence, lack of a permanent home, and a lot of other problems those of us with middle class backgrounds can only imagine. Schools need to ensure that there is discipline on campus and that students can trust teachers. They don't have to like their teachers, but they should respect them and know that their teachers care about them.

I'm feeling a bit long now and the Calculus books are calling my name. I want to talk about this more later.

It as been a number of years since I've chosen a textbook. I remember buying them in college. I liked getting used ones, but sometimes I had to buy new. I remember that sometimes the cost of an individual book approached $100. As a teacher, the books I did choose (early in the century) ranged in price from $35 up to $70.

Now I'm looking at books. I mentioned some of my criteria yesterday. I've begun looking more closely at individual books. Some can be discarded immediately. One huge shock was cost. It's been years since I've had new books. One of the books I like comes in at $133...and that's just a single book. I just can't imagine the cost for a big school. They're all pricey, though one of the books I like is available for free online. It's not pirated. The author made it available! Impressive, though the book itself comes in at $70, and is the cheapest of the lot.

I attempted to get a sample of another textbook.  I was bounced between 4 different people by 3 different phone calls. The last person told me that she needed to investigate me and did not know when they could get back to me. Does that mean they don't think I'm a real teacher? Her first step was to argue with me about my choice of text. I'll try really hard not to let this cloud my evaluation, but I know the bias will stick.

There are some cheaper options. I purchased a Calculus book from Dover publishing for about $20. They issue paperback versions of older texts. I like the book, but I don't think it's viable for my situation. The book is older and is more suitable on either a bookshelf or as a paperweight. It's a fat paperback and I don't think it will stand up to student use. That really is a consideration.

I love buying books. Visiting a book store or a used book store is the only kind of shopping I really enjoy. This process has frustrated me because none of the books are popping out as "good". I want to spend some more time looking at their content tonight. The uncooperative one isn't in the collection.

One bright spot is the help I've gotten from other teachers. The actual math teacher at my school suggested a decent book (the most expensive and one I used in college). I also got some great help from some really good teachers in the middle of the state. No agreement among any of them, but there was some really passionate disagreement over one book: the one which is playing games with me. One teacher told me that it's the absolute worst math curriculum out there. Another loves it.

I'll update on content and maybe post some finalists. I don't like the short notice on picking this book!

I'm back from visiting my family back east and I'm getting ready for a new year. It looks like there will be some changes. My school has hired the man who held my post prior to my taking it. He will be coving Geology and Advanced Biology (two courses we never offered before), as well as Anatomy and a seventh grade health class. He will also be the technology person.

I've lost Anatomy from my schedule (good riddance). I'll be picking up Calculus instead. This came as a surprise. I'd been pushing to have us offer it, but I'd never actually expected to be the one teaching it. It's been nearly 10 years since I've taught the course, so life should be interesting this year.

This puts me in the position of choosing a textbook. While I don't teach straight out of a book, they do make a great resource, especially with a course like Calculus.

I've done some searching and I've contacted some math teachers I know. I'm coming up with a list and I'm assembling a collection of sample texts. Here's what I'm looking for:

• It should be compatible with with AP curriculum. My course is supposed to be dual-credit, so I think that will work.
• It should instruct on several ways to solve problems: analytical, numerical, and graphical
• It should emphasize problem solving, not simply drill of skills
• It should be clearly written so that an intelligent student can use it (too many math books talk right over the heads of their intended audience)
• I'd like to see some small and large projects
• It should contain technology applications (though I can add these myself if needed)
  
• I'd like a book that can realistically be finished in a year: no bloated books to destroy my students' backs
• I'd love it if there was an electronic version I could incorporate into my online "classroom"
  

It will make for a great opportunity. Hopefully I can do my part to improve the curriculum of my school.