Re. how to teach matrices: First teach computer graphics, then teach linear algebra :) I switched universities after the first year, and subsequently I took a

Re. how to teach matrices: First teach computer graphics, then teach linear algebra :) I switched universities after the first year, and subsequently I took a lot of courses in the "wrong order". I did computer graphics first and then linear algebra. That's the wrong way around as defined in the curriculum, but it was clearly the right way for me. And for most people I believe too. When the matrices came, they were clearly a practical vessel for the practical things we needed to to in computer graphics and were getting a little unwieldly and we had an inkling there was a pattern lying underneath for. Sometimes it is both possible and better to teach the practical hands-on craft first, to create hunger for and an appreciation of the theory, and then teach the theory. (And then go back and blow up the "craft" ideas and go further still.)