Overhead Transparencies

This page is completely out of date from a technology point of view; some of the advice is still valuable. Overheads are a thing of the past. PowerPoint or Beamer is the way to go.

Images are much easier to come by today due to Google-Image.

Overheads can be used to great effect in a history of mathematics course. There are several types of overheads that can convey significant information to the students and can give them a real appreciation of history. The most important types are
  1. Pictures of mathematicians.
  2. Title pages of famous works.
  3. Significant pages from important works.
  4. Maps.
  5. Quotations from famous mathematicians.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to acquire a good set of overheads. My experience has been that the pictures which one downloads from the internet are not yet of significant quality to make good overheads. However, this should change in a matter of years. Then we will all have access to an abundance of good images.

Once you have a good image that you would like to turn into an overhead for class use, there is still the tricky issue of preparing overheads.

Of late, I have found the html markup language used on the web to be a good way to prepare overheads that only contain text. As examples, I have posted a few of them here. What I do is to first prepare the text using html, then use my browser to view them in 24 point type. When I print them off they can be easily converted to overheads using the type of transparencies that go through the photocopy machine. Here are a few examples:

  1. A new history institute.
  2. An email list on the history of mathematics.
  3. Survey texts for a history of mathematics course.
  4. Other textbooks.
  5. Student papers using original sources.
  6. Types of exam questions.
  7. Matching questions.
  8. True-False questions.

Return to the minicourse home page.
If you have comments, send email to V. Frederick Rickey at fred-rickey@usma.edu
Posted 19 January 1998. Revised December 23, 2008.