Mathematica as an educational tool for signal processing

The authors describe extensions to a symbolic mathematics program that make it an effective educational tool for courses in linear systems theory. These extensions are in the form of packages and notebooks for the Mathematica environment. The new signal processing packages contain rule bases that symbolically compute convolutions and all the transforms common to signal processing: Fourier, Laplace, z, etc. In order to introduce a student to these concepts and to how they are implemented in Mathematica, four tutorials have been written in Mathematica´s notebook format. Notebooks, a form of hypertext, allow students to access material randomly, to discover insights at their own pace, and to evaluate code provided in the examples. Students can also use notebooks to solve homework problems in a self-documenting fashion