Wolfram|Alpha

Explore the educational potential of Wolfram|Alpha

Outline

Intro

What Is Wolfram|Alpha®?

Step-by-Step Solutions

Open Code

Wolfram Problem Generator™

Wolfram Challenges™

Who Am I?

Brad Janes
Wolfram|Alpha Math Content Manager

Wolfram employee since 2010
Wolfram|Alpha Math group since 2015
Wolfram|Alpha Math Manager since August, 2018

What Is Wolfram|Alpha?

Wolfram|Alpha is a “Computational Knowledge Engine” consisting of:

Natural Language Parser

Transform human languages into Wolfram Language™ expressions

Started with English, moving to Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Korean and Russian

Curated Data

Data feeds

Curated knowledge base

Dynamic Algorithmic Computation

50,000+ types of algorithms

Computed Visual Presentation

Results collected into various pods

Often an input pod, result pod and possibly several additional pods with related properties, computations and information

Many different topics covering many different domains:

Try it yourself at wolframalpha.com!

Step-by-Step Solutions

See how a human would do the computations

Broad coverage of topics from elementary arithmetic to college-level math

Tailored to the expected knowledge level of a student studying the topic

Work alongside Wolfram|Alpha by uncovering hints for the next step

Explore alternate methods

Dive deeper with intermediate steps

Learn more about Step-by-Step Solutions

See more examples for Step-by-Step Solutions

Not just computations! Step-by-Step Solutions math proofs

Not just math! Step-by-Step Solutions chemistry and physics/engineering formulas

Wolfram|Alpha® Pro for educators

Open Code

Certain Wolfram|Alpha pods have a button to explore more on the Wolfram Cloud.

Clicking “Open code” leads to an open cloud notebook containing some of the Wolfram Language functions used to compute the results

Try it yourself!

Wolfram Problem Generator

Programmatically generated practice problems covering many math domains.

Search by academic subject or by Common Core Standard.

Step-by-step explanation of the solution

Problem sheets

Try it yourself!

Cloud API version of Wolfram Problem Generator prototype for interested partners (use key: BTSWeb18)

Wolfram Challenges

Short Wolfram Language programming challenges

Write your own function or program to solve problems

See how your function compares: challenges.wolfram.com/leaderboard

Broad spectrum of different types of functions

Try it yourself!

References and Links of Interest

An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language by Stephen Wolfram

Documentation for the WolframAlpha function in the Wolfram Language

Back-to-school blog post

Wolfram|Alpha Pro pricing

Wolfram Community

Community Education group

Community Wolfram|Alpha group