Wolfram Education Group: Free Online Seminar Catalog

Our seminar series offers brief presentations by senior Wolfram Research technical staff on topics of interest to Mathematica newcomers as well as to experienced users. These seminars provide you with an easy way to learn about what's new in Mathematica and find out about emerging technologies. They give you a special opportunity to learn from Mathematica experts, and best of all, they're free!

Online seminars run 30-60 minutes and include live Q&A with Wolfram Research technical staff. Online seminar dates and times are listed on the Wolfram Education Group seminar calendar. On Demand seminar recordings are now available, so you can watch anytime.

S01: An Overview of Mathematica for Education »

Using Mathematica in the classroom
This seminar provides an overview of the Mathematica functionality that makes it easy for educators to integrate the software into precollege, community college, and higher education classrooms. Whether you have used Mathematica for years or have no technical computing experience, you'll see many examples of Mathematica's use for education that can be implemented immediately. Resources and presentation materials are made available to participants.

View Recorded Seminar On Demand

S03: Calculators Are for Calculating, Mathematica Is for Calculus »

Insights and materials from a former high school and university calculus instructor
This seminar discusses some limitations with traditional approaches to teaching calculus and shows how Mathematica can remove those limits for a more enriching learning experience for your students. We'll compare Mathematica versus traditional methods of instruction for teaching calculus topics such as squeeze theorem, derivatives, Newton's method, Riemann sums, and solids of revolution. Courseware, lab activities, and other resources for exploring these topics will be made available to attendees for immediate use within the calculus classroom.

S04: Wolfram|Alpha in the Classroom »

Integrating Wolfram|Alpha into the K–12 classroom
This seminar gives an introduction and overview of Wolfram|Alpha and how to integrate its powerful knowledge into the K–12 classroom.

S11: What's New in Mathematica 8 »

Latest features demonstrated
This seminar gives an overview of the new features in Mathematica 8. Topics range from free-form linguistic input and Wolfram|Alpha data integration all the way to C code generation and new functions in probability and statistics, finance, control systems, graphs and networks, image processing, wavelet analysis, and much more.

S12: Topics in First Year Calculus »

Use Mathematica to strengthen key concepts
This seminar provides a look at topics found in introductory calculus courses and illustrates Mathematica's application to those concepts. In addition to demonstrating Mathematica's built-in calculus functions, this example-driven seminar provides a look at how to expand Mathematica's functionality by creating custom functions to further explore specific topics in the classroom such as computation of Riemann sums, optimizing area, and computing trajectories. Tools and resources for exploring these topics will be made available to attendees for immediate use within the calculus classroom.

View Recorded Seminar On Demand

S13: Introduction to Visualization with Mathematica »

Taught by a senior graphics developer
This seminar provides a closer look at the visualization options in Mathematica. Attendees receive an introduction to MaxRecursion and PlotPoints, the basic concepts necessary to achieve high-quality plots. Several examples are presented.

S14: Creating Demonstrations »

Presented by a Demonstrations editor
This seminar gives a brief introduction to the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, and shows how Mathematica users can write and publish their own Demonstrations and thereby join the growing community based around the project.

S15: Senior Developer Q&A »

Discussions with senior Mathematica developers
Participate in a Q&A session with a senior Mathematica developer. Developers (one per session; see schedule) share their expertise about the system's structure and design, and its broad application in a variety of professional and academic fields. Discuss exciting new innovations and technologies with the pros.

S16: A Tour through Calculus »

Insights from a Mathematica senior developer
This seminar offers an overview of calculus in Mathematica along with applications such as solitary waves, minimal surfaces, and the Painlevé differential equations. Mathematica's internal problem-solving methods are also compared with conventional computation by hand. Significant historical and practical calculus examples are presented and solved, using the symbolic, graphical, and interactive features available in Mathematica.

View Recorded Seminar On Demand

S17: Applied Parallel Computation with Mathematica »

Learn real-world solutions
This seminar provides a brief overview of Mathematica's parallel capabilities applied to several disciplines. The presentation covers examples in finance, engineering, biology, and mathematics. Code examples showing the direct application of Mathematica's parallel commands will be featured.

S18: Import and Export Data Formats in Mathematica »

Seamlessly import hundreds of formats
This seminar presents an introduction to the Import and Export functions in Mathematica, including Mathematica formats for geospatial, graph, chemical, and biomolecular data. With the help of dozens of examples, it illustrates how to work with data formats from a variety of application areas, such as computational biology, chemistry, geospatial information systems, image processing, multimedia, audio, databases, medical imaging, chemical informatics, astronomy, 3D geometry, vector graphics, and scientific data.

S19: Discrete Calculus with Mathematica »

First-ever comprehensive system for discrete symbolic calculus
This seminar offers an overview of discrete calculus in Mathematica along with applications such as random number generation, chaotic dynamical systems, and the theory of algorithms. Examples illustrating the capabilities for sequence analysis, symbolic summation, and convergence testing of infinite series in Mathematica are given. Insight into the internal implementation and user-extensibility of these features is also provided.

View Recorded Seminar On Demand

S20: Statistics and Data Analysis with Mathematica »

Fully integrated theoretical and applied statistics functionality
This seminar provides a brief overview of statistics and data analysis functionality, emphasizing the latest additions in Mathematica 8. Topics covered include descriptive measures and visualization; properties of distributions; parametric, derived, and nonparametric distributions; random number generation and parameter estimation; hypothesis testing for location, variance, and distributional goodness of fit; linear, nonlinear, and generalized linear models. Resources and presentation materials are made available to participants.

S21: Working with Data Collections »

Work with built-in computable data sources
This seminar introduces computable data collections and shows how to work with them in Mathematica. Examples are drawn from mathematics, physics, chemistry, economics and finance, geopolitics, linguistics, and more.

S22: Overview of webMathematica »

Updated for webMathematica 3
This seminar provides an introduction to webMathematica. Topics covered include an overview of webMathematica technology, a tour of example sites highlighting key and new features, and webMathematica development tools. Presentation and example materials are made available to participants.

S23: Presentations with Mathematica »

Tips for creating great presentations and technical documents
This seminar provides useful tips and tools for creating and working with Mathematica notebooks that are designed for presenting to others. Examples show you how to incorporate traditional mathematical notation, auto-numbered objects, hyperlinks and buttons, slide shows, and more to create powerful presentations.

S24: Working with Imported Data in Mathematica »

Tips for working with data more efficiently in Mathematica
Mathematica provides a variety of tools for importing and manipulating data. This seminar walks through several concrete applied examples of working with imported data in some commonly used formats, such as XLS, HDF, text, DXF, and FASTA, as well as a time-series data example.

S25: Image Processing with Mathematica »

Introduction to basic image analysis features
This seminar provides an overview of the fundamental integrated image processing features in Mathematica 8. A broad range of topics are covered, including image creation, manipulation, color conversions, arithmetic, linear/nonlinear operations, and morphology. All topics are accompanied by fun, task-oriented, interactive examples

S27: Got Manipulate? »

Introduction to creating dynamic interfaces in Mathematica
Want to create a dynamic interface, but aren't a C++, Java, or .NET/Link programmer? We've got you covered. In one line of code and faster than you can move a slider from left to right, you'll be creating and manipulating graphics, formulas, and even notebooks themselves.

View Recorded Seminar On Demand

S41: Statistical Visualization with Mathematica »

Explore statistics charts and compare and visualize distributions and datasets
This seminar provides an overview of the new statistical visualization functionality in Mathematica 8. Topics include visual inspection of the shape of data and comparisons to distributions and datasets. Histograms, quantile plots, box-and-whisker plots, probability plots, distribution charts, and many more will be covered.

S45: Wavelet Analysis in Mathematica »

Overview of wavelet families, transforms, and visualization functions
This seminar introduces the integrated wavelet analysis system in Mathematica 8, including continuous wavelet transforms, various discrete wavelet transforms, packet transforms, wavelet families, wavelet based thresholding, wavelet visualizations, and various wavelet utility functions. Numerous applications and examples demonstrate how to work directly and seamlessly with multidimensional data, sounds, and images.

S51: Image Processing Applications »

Explore advanced image processing applications in Mathematica 8
This seminar explores several applications of image processing in Mathematica, including segmentation techniques, feature detection, working with multiple images, image stitching, and deconvolution. The new image processing capabilities of Mathematica 8 are highlighted.

S60: Control Systems in Mathematica »

Analyze and design control systems, simulate models, and interactively evaluate controllers
This seminar explores the new suite of control system tools in Mathematica 8, used to do analysis, design, and simulation of continuous and discrete-time systems. Topics include the construction and manipulation of state space and transfer function models, system interconnections, frequency response plots, and controller design.

S61: Control Systems Applications »

In-depth examples demonstrating control system design and simulation
This seminar gives a step-by-step approach to working with control systems in Mathematica. Each example begins with a problem definition and works toward a solution and a simulation using several controller design methods, including pole placement, optimal control, and Bode plot manipulation.

S70: GPU Computation Using Mathematica and CUDA »

Unlock the power of your graphics card with Mathematica
This seminar provides an introduction to performing computation on the graphical processing unit (GPU) in Mathematica 8 using CUDA. With this new technology, users can accelerate their programs. The seminar topics include reasons for using the GPU, an overview of CUDA and OpenCL, some use cases for CUDA and OpenCL, how to use CUDA from within Mathematica, and the GPU programming workflow from within Mathematica. Upon completion of the seminar, attendees will understand the basics of how to speed up their Mathematica programs by using the GPU.

S71: Advanced GPU Programming Using Mathematica and CUDA »

Advanced CUDA programming methods in Mathematica 8
This seminar provides an in-depth overview of the new GPU programming functionality in Mathematica 8 through CUDA. Topics include how to compile CUDA code into an executable, load user-defined CUDA functions into Mathematica, use CUDA memory handles to increase memory bandwidth, and use Mathematica parallel tools to compute on multiple GPUs either on the same machine or across networks, as well as a discussion about the general workflow of CUDA programming within Mathematica.

S72: GPU Computation Using Mathematica and OpenCL »

Introduction to using OpenCL and Mathematica 8 for GPU programming
This seminar provides an introductory overview of the new GPU functionality in Mathematica 8 by using OpenCL. Topics include reasons for using the GPU, overviews of OpenCL and CUDA, some use cases for OpenCL, how to use OpenCL from within Mathematica, and the GPU programming workflow within Mathematica.