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St. Olaf to honor French computer scientist

By David Gonnerman '90
April 17, 2008

St. Olaf College will honor French computer scientist Jean-Marie Laborde with an honorary degree during a convocation ceremony Thursday, April 24, at 11 a.m. in Boe Memorial Chapel. Laborde also will present a lecture on dynamic geometry Tuesday, April 22, at 1:30 p.m. in room 282 of the Science Center.

Both events are free and open to the public. The convocation will be streamed live and archived online.

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Laborde
Jean-Marie Laborde is a founder of the field of dynamic geometry and creator of the Cabri Geometry software that is used to explore and visualize two- and three-dimensional Euclidean geometry. In addition to his research and development activities, Laborde helps teachers around the world understand how dynamic geometry increases student comprehension in the classroom. He has been instrumental in introducing Cabri -- a principal teaching and research tool of dynamic geometry for teachers, mathematicians and scientists -- to more than 100 million users in 23 languages across 35 countries.

Laborde started the Cabri project in 1981. Seven years later Cabri received Apple Computer's Apple Trophy for best educational software of the year. And last year the software earned a prestigious BETT Award at the United Kingdom's leading showcase event for educational technology.

Laborde is founder of a series of international conferences devoted to understanding how to teach more effectively using dynamic geometry software, especially Cabri. He has made three prior visits to St. Olaf, where he has lectured on dynamic geometry, demonstrated the capabilities of Cabri Geometry, spoken in computer science classes and been a keynote speaker at an NSF-sponsored conference on teaching geometry.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.