Row Reduction Microworld
When you follow the link in the yellow box below, the activity will open in a separate window. You should then press the F11 Key to expand that window to the full screen.
The activity begins in exact fraction mode. If you prefer to work with decimals (which may only be approximate), use the link to go to decimal mode. You specify the number of decimal digits to show in the display.
Below are
instructions for entering your own matrix. You can return to this window to review those instructions without interfering with row reduction microworld. Either use the task bar, or the <Alt-Tab> key combination.
1. Create a new zero matrix with the desired number of rows and columns by using the part of the main screen that looks like this:
2. Next edit the entries in the zero matrix just as you would in a word processor, to replace the zeros with the numbers you want.
3. When you are through, proceed with the row reduction process.
For more specifics on editing the matrix entries, continue reading below. Otherwise, go back to the previous page, or click on the window for the row operations activity.
You can change the values which appear in a matrix in the pale yellow or pale blue window using editing operations, as follows.
Delete and Retype
If you (left) mouse click an entry within a matrix, you will see that it is outlined with a dotted line. Within the outline, a blinking vertical line appears to indicate the insertion point for text. Use the Backspace key to delete characters before, and/or the Delete key to delete characters after the insertion point. Then type in new values.
Select and Retype
To select, instead of clicking on an entry, swipe it -- that is, click on one side of it and drag the mouse across it while holding down the left button. Then the entire entry will be highlighted in a black box. Now just type the new entry and it will automatically replace the old one.
Moving Around
You can move the insertion point within an entry, and also between entries, using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
Cut, Copy and Paste
You can cut and paste, or copy and paste, too. To copy something, select it as described before, then type Ctrl-c on the keyboard. If you wish to cut instead of copy, use Ctrl-u instead of Ctrl-c. To paste something after the insertion point, type Ctrl-v. These commands can also be reached by clicking the right mouse button over the insertion point, and selecting Actions from the menu that appears.