Will mathematics online renew the teaching of math?

Abstract

ICT have lead to deep changes among a group of French teachers of mathematics, but their number is still scarce. Those who have adopted ICT are no longer solitary teachers facing their classes but productive collaborative workers with colleagues from all horizons. Elaborating new online resources in common reveals new and unsuspected skills. It follows that those who are implied undergo an intense continuing training. New enthusiasms enlighten everyday difficulties and make them bearable... Numerous new sites are a testimony to the ongoing renewal. Those who have integrated ICT into their classes, at the very heart of the process of learning mathematics, have discovered that their job was profoundly changed. From dispensers of knowledge, they have been changed into experienced companions who are aware of their students’ efforts in the learning process. They are now able to use their students’ discoveries and their unforeseen questions. They resist their ability to divert an item from its normal use. They refuse the non-critical “copy-stick”, which often stands instead of work. They are ever so pleased to see the students who were so far demotivated getting newly interested in what school can bring them. They measure the profound novelty of teaching in a multimedia environment. They claim for help and training from their supervising authorities, who often merely give orders and recommendations, without measuring what they demand from their agents. Those pioneers are probably inventing the school of to-morrow. They measure the cost but also the newness and the thrill. In the long run, ICT could bring some new magic to the teachers’ job, and of course to the students’.