Strand 7:

The global perspective of information technology

ICTMT 5, Klagenfurt, 6-9 August 2001

(Schedule, tentative as of 8.6.2001)

Chair: Peter Bender

Tuesday 15:15 - 16:00 Chair: Peter Bender

Babies and bathwater

John Searl (UK, searl@maths.ed.ac.uk)

Tuesday 16:15 - 17:00 Chair: Peter Bender

Investigation into Student Attitudes to using Calculators in Learning Mathematics

Roger Fentem (UK, rogerfentem@netscapeonline.co.uk)

Tuesday 17:00 - 17:45 Chair: Peter Bender

Project on critical thinking development using technology

Tatyana Olejnik (Ukraine, olejnik@kgpu.sa.net.ua)

Wednesday 8:30 - 9:15 Chair: Peter Bender

Self directed learning in maths - szenarios, material from a German case study

Monika Schwarze (Germany, schwarze@swhamm.de)

Wednesday 9:30 - 10:15 Chair: Peter Bender

Didactic innovations of teaching by internet

Stefanie Krivsky (Germany, krivsky@math.uni-wuppertal.de)

Wednesday 11:30 - 12:15 Chair: Peter Bender

Plenary: Chances and limits for teaching in the information age - human mind models and society demands

Walter Oberschelp (Germany, oberschelp@i7.informatik.rwth-aachen.de)

Thursday 8:30 - 9:15 Chair: Peter Bender

The role of the computer in discovering mathematical theorems

Tadeusz Ratusinski (Poland, ratusita@ultra.wsp.krakow.pl)

Thursday 9:30 - 10:15 Chair: Peter Bender

Technology and History of Mathematics

Li Ma (Sweden, mali@itn.liu.se)

Thursday 15:15 - 16:00 Chair: Peter Bender

On the impact of hand-held technology on mathematics learning - from the epistemological point of view

Ewa Lakoma (Poland, e.lakoma@iar.wat.waw.pl)

Thursday 16:15 - 17:00 Chair: Peter Bender

Mathematical Abilities of University Entrants

Angela Schwenk (Germany, schwenk@tfh-berlin.de)

Abstracts:

Walter Oberschelp, Germany:

Chances and limits for teaching in the information age - human mind models and society demands

Successful IT-based teaching requires motivation, understanding, training and didactic sugar. The main problem is to adapt the problem structure to the intellectual structure of the learner and to his needs. Moreover there must be results which are useful for the society. We experience more and more, that the charm of having huge information resources e.g. via internet is only temporary: The present IT scratches only the surface of the human and social demands. The main need of man is not the consumption of news, but production of and interaction with personal signals on a reliable basis in order to be sure of ones own uniqueness. Surfing for information through open and heterogeneous nets will loose importance against new types of devices, which guarantee, e.g., security of transmission, legal control of transactions and semantic reliability of information. The task to keep the society in good order is incompatible with unrestricted informational liberalism, and the society needs more than a netiquette without obligations. New problems for jurisdiction arise: Information crimes cannot be judged by simply counting bits like peas.
Some epistemological problems which are connected with the concept of information are discussed. And the realisation of a global justice will have to be recognised as one fundamental basis for the global society. In particular, we investigate, how math-learning will have to develop: The special problems of math-teaching are the alienation by formalism, the lack of personal appeal and the somewhat metaphysical nature of mathematics, whereas its pragmatic value is often invisible. Since mathematical ideas are often very compact, the abundant information of the internet is hard to combine with mathematical thinking. And yet, mathematical teaching establishes useful tools for the complex existence in the global society. We exemplify problems in private and global economy and in our real physical world and discuss essential and obsolete material. We sketch, how methods for self-guided instruction may be improved. But we emphasise, that, due to the anthropological situation, personal instruction and care will become even more important in the future. The satisfaction of really understanding an argument from the scratch and the experience of responsibly solving problems without the assistance of non-transparent tools will become a source of creativity and a well accepted motive in the education of independent and mature citizens.

Roger Fentem, UK:

Investigation into Student Attitudes to using Calculators in Learning Mathematics

In many countries curriculum designers, educators and examiners receive mixed messages about the role that should be played by information technology: imposition of severe restrictions to active encouragement of CAS. We present an international study exploring student attitudes to the use of technology, their training needs, and their ability in mathematics when learning in a CAS intensive but assessment hostile environment.

Stefanie Krivsky, Germany:

Didactic innovations of teaching by internet

While in the beginning the internet was designed by scientists for the purpose of exchanging information, it is nowadays more and more adopted by entertainment and commercial use. The internet project matheprisma (math prism) tries to combine these two objectives with the aim to simplify learning of complex mathematics using multimedia and entertainment aspects of internet. Matheprisma is a collection of modules addressing several mathematical questions on different educational levels. Technical and didactic possibilities of internet pages are presented by means of some examples of matheprisma-modules.

Ewa Lakoma, Poland:

On the impact of hand-held technology on mathematics learning - from the epistemological point of view

Recently in the most of countries, mathematics became to be treated as one of the most important components of general education and general culture. Thus it is extremely important to enable students to develop their own mathematics as a language for communication. Thus, it is necessary to consider a process of mathematics learning from the epistemological perspective and to recognise students' ways of mathematical thinking, especially when students use information technology. In this presentation I would like to show the main results of my educational research, concerning exploring and analysing a process of mathematics learning from epistemological point of view- at secondary and tertiary level - in which graphing calculators TI-83 and TI-92 are used as supporting tools.

Li Ma, Sweden:

Technology and History of Mathematics

This paper will discuss some aspects of using technology in teaching history of mathematics.

Tatyana Olejnik, Ukraine:

Project on critical thinking development using technology

This paper represents the results of special courses given to undergraduate teacher students of «mathematics-computer science» speciality. A general problem of its study is understanding the possibilities of technologies for realisation of ideas of Project on Critical Thinking development. The most interesting and significant aspect of this study was modification of views on the essence and kinds of teaching and learning activity. Obviously it is necessary to modify curricula and methodical frameworks which should focus to formation successful learners. So and why CAS like DERIVE and dynamic geometry software like DG are good medium for encouragement of pupils' interests and reflection. Besides new standards of the mathematics education require to understand how meaningful classroom dialog can stimulate collaboration of teacher, students and software.

Tadeusz Ratusinski, Poland:

The role of the computer in discovering mathematical theorems

Pedagogical University, where I work, prepares mathematicians for being mathematics teachers in the future. The pre-service teachers ought to be educated enough to work in a modern school. In this paper I would like to present my observation I made during my classes with Four Year mathematics students (approx. 22-year-old). The students were supposed to discover, using computer, some properties of the monotonic functions. I would like to show the results the students work and also a few characteristic errors they made formulating mathematical hypothesis.

Angela Schwenk, Germany:

Mathematical Abilities of University Entrants

Looking the future of mathematical teaching should also include a view on the situation at the moment: University entrants to engineering courses have poor knowledge in mathematics. The presented results base on investigations in 1995 and 2000:

• Comparison of the results from 1995 and 2000

• Comparison of entrants with 12 (Fachabitur) and 13 (allgemeine Hochschulreife) years of high school education

• Influence of a mathematical bridging course

Monika Schwarze, Germany:

Self directed learning in maths - szenarios, material from a german case study

Information about a german case study of self-directed learning in high schools supported in different ways by new media, e.g. interactive tools or learning environments: there will be an exemplarily presentation of szenarios of learning linear algebra, statistics, analysis or geometry and some results of evaluation of the first projects.

John Searl, U.K.:

Babies and bathwater

The lecture will focus on those parts of mathematical understandings that are lost (possibly) when technology is introduced.