Math Textbooks in the Future
As computer and Internet technologies advance, their effects have become evident in various areas of mathematics education. Many technologies (e.g., math applets, online games, math software) provided interactive learning environments within which students can work with multiple representations of mathematical ideas and easily observe the effects of their activities. Many researchers have underlined that the dynamic feature of technology might draw students’ attention into mathematical concepts and enable them to identify the connections among various mathematical ideas. The interactive feature of current technology has already made static textbook images obsolete for mathematics instruction. Thus, current math textbooks have just began provide interactive learning environments through providing additional CDs, DVDs, or websites rather than spending lots of pages for static images or pictures. As a result of this, current math textbooks tend to become thinner than those in the past. Many researchers have also pointed out this changing feature of math textbooks. The following video gives some insights about how technology will change the future math textbooks and assessment of students’ math learning.
Jul 16th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
‘Many researchers have underlined …… mathematical ideas.’ This is true to a certain extent, that technology provides interactive learning. It is very important to the students of today that the teacher keeps abreast of the latest technology to enhance learning. But most important is that the student is interested in understanding the concept. The key word here should be multiple representation, whereby technology provides another approach for learning, but does not supercede all other avenues.
The down side to technology usage is that student may eventually become bored and divert their attention to other areas on the internet. Overall, if mathematics is made fun and students are engaged in learning they will stay focus.
Jul 18th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I also believe that providing multiple representations of mathematics concepts is one of the most important benefits of current information technology. However, exposing students to various forms of mathematical ideas sometimes might put additional cognitive load on students’ learning. This might be also one of the reasons why students cannot keep their attention (or interest) while using technology for their learning.
While providing multiple representations of mathematics concepts through technology, we need to be cautious whether the representations we present are meaningful and manageable for learners. If learners are not able to recognize the mathematical ideas or relations in or among representations, these representations will no longer be their representations. Thus, students gradually lose their attention and interest on these representations even if the technology being used to present the representations is quite interesting for students in the beginning.