To: All students in Math 151-04 and Math 151-06. Subject: Welcome to Math 151-04 and Math 151-06 Hi. First class is Monday, but I wanted to tell you some stuff beforehand. 1. Homeworks will be (mostly) given via WebAssign. Please sign up now! Either follow the Quick Start Guide , or just do this: Go here: . On the right side of the page, you'll see a box with the heading "ACCOUNT LOG IN". At the bottom of that box, click on the link "Have a class key?". Click it. - Class key for section 04: iit 9796 8685 - Class key for section 06: iit 7171 2226 Fill out the page. As you can see, WebAssign is not free. But you have 14 days free access, to start with. 2. Eventually you will have to purchase WebAssign. Buying it online is probably your only option. (Our bookstore doesn't have access cards or books bundled with access cards. If you haven't purchased a book yet, you may wish to consider getting a book bundled with an access card, for example, at iChapters - see the link below.) Buying it through your WebAssign account, it's $35 for one semester or $55 for multiple semesters. If you take Math 152 or Math 251 (or 151 again), it is likely that these classes will use WebAssign with Stewart again, but it's not certain. You have to choose which one you think is best. There's also an option to purchase an ebook. An "ebook" or "eTextbook" is an electronic copy of the class textbook (PDF). If you're interested in that sort of thing, first you should follow this link to see various options at iChapters (a different company), such as purchasing one chapter at a time: 3. Doing homework with WebAssign. You will see two assignments. "Intro to WebAssign 2008-09" is practice - just dive into it! But "Algebra Review" is real homework, due Wednesday. Important: You should generally do each WebAssign homework on paper, just like any other homework! To ensure that you maintain this good habit, you should probably print out each assignment, and take it away from the computer. After you solve each problem, then you can return to WebAssign to enter in your answers. Exception: the "Watch It" and "Master It" buttons. These are videos and tutorials. It's always better to try it on your own first (on paper), but the videos and tutorials are there to help you - use them! For each answer, you can try 5 times to get it right. If that isn't enough, you're probably going about it in the wrong way. Between attempts, you must go through the problem carefully and figure out what went wrong. No guessing. Students can request an extension of 1 day, twice. For each day that a problem or part of a problem is late, there is a 25% penalty on points. 4. See you Monday! - Math 151-04 meets at 10:00am, in Siegel Hall room 204. - Math 151-06 meets at 11:25am, in Life Sciences room 152. Michael J. Pelsmajer http://www.iit.edu/~pelsmaje Applied Mathematics, E1 Room 206 pelsmajer@iit.edu Illinois Institute of Technology (312)567-5344 Chicago, IL 60616