Source: KM Das <daskm@plu.edu>
I'm going to be teaching an introductory abstract algebra....
... I'd prefer using G.A.P...

Dear Prof. Kaustuv M. Das,

This mail may not answer your question properly:
>if anyone knows of any books out there for such a course...
However for these two or three years I also have been using gap
in my algebra classes.

Gap has a very precise manual in its. You can refer it by netscape, lynx etc.
If your gap is gap3r4p4 then the manual starts from ./gap3r4p4/htm/index.htm.
Most of my students are Japanese and find it difficult to read the manual
in a limited time, but I think first several chapters are already good
introduction to gap.

I use gap for letting my students to understand algebras which are used
in cryptography. I started my class from elementary number theory using
PowerMod, ChineseRem,.. functions, then group theory introducing
functions ConjugacyClasses, IsAbelian, Subgroup, RightCosets, and so on.
Finally I explaind discrete logarithm problem and showed them a programme
of computing large prime fields by gap.

Though it is time consuming to prepare the classes, but most of my
students filled the questionnaires very positively.
(ref. GAP in algebra class. Proceedings of the third Asian technology
conference in mathematics, ATCM '98, Springer(1998)233-245)

Therefore I believe that your students also would enjoy your class
very much.

Sincerely,

Hideki Sawada
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Faculty of Science
Yamagata University
Yamagata 990-8560
Japan

e-mail sawada@ksmj522.kj.yamagata-u.ac.jp
Tel. +81-23-628-4531 (023-628-4531)
Fax. +81-23-628-4538 (023-628-4538)