Dynamic Geometry on WWW

Abstract

The first section of this paper on World Wide Web applications related to dynamic geometry addresses dynamic geometry and teaching, including the relationship between dynamic geometry and direct manipulation, key features of dynamic geometry environments, the importance of direct engagement of the learner using construction software for manipulating geometrical objects, and the Cabri-geometry multilingual software. The second section focuses on methods for managing the benefits of geometry on the Web and disadvantages of these methods. Software options for adding dynamic geometry animations to Web pages are discussed in the next section. The fourth section describes the Cabri-Java project, which is developing a Java applet for bundling all the advantages of dynamic geometry in active figures; in its current preliminary version, the Cabri-Java applet allows the placement of active figures in Web pages in which the user can drag geometrical objects while preserving the geometrical properties defined in their creation. The paper concludes with a summary of future work. Three figures present a Cabri-geometry software screen, a Cabri-Java applet, and a Cabri-Java optical example. (AEF)