This paper describes students' interactions with dynamic diagrams in the context of an American geometry class. Students used the dragging tool and the measuring tool in Cabri Geometry to make mathematical conjectures. The analysis, using the cK[cent sign] model of conceptions, suggests that incorporating technology in mathematics classrooms…

This article explores ways of conceptualizing the design of innovative learning tools as emergent from dialectics between designers and learner-users of those tools. More specifically, I focus on the reciprocities between a designer's objectives for student learning and a user's situated activity in a learning environment, as these interact and…

What makes Dynamic Geometry Environment (DGE) a powerful mathematical knowledge acquisition microworld is its ability to visually make explicit the implicit dynamism of thinking about mathematical geometrical concepts. One of DGE's powers is to equip us with the ability to retain the background of a geometrical configuration while we can…

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the infrastructural nature of many modern conceptual technologies. The focus of this paper is on conceptual tools associated with elementary types of data modeling. We intend to show a variety of ways in which these conceptual tools not only express thinking, but also mold and shape thinking. And those ways…

Learners' choices of problem solving tools and techniques are influenced by the context in which the problem is encountered, and methods utilized in one context may not be recognized as natural ways to proceed in another. Explores the process of fostering learner-initiated applications of technology to address the wide range of problems outside of…

Analyzes to what extent the computational model of the geometry implemented in a dynamic geometry environment provides models for physical motion, focusing on the continuity issues related to motion. Addresses the issue of the computable representation of knowledge. (Author/MM)

Focuses on the role of tools provided by a computer microworld (C.AR.ME) on the strategies developed by 14-year-old students for the area measurement of a non-convex polygon. Interprets and classifies student strategies on a transformation and comparison task into categories in terms of the tools used for their development. (Author/MM)

The capacity of the "Geometer's Sketchpad" to trace the path of points by drawing the position of the point at different times provides a powerful tool to help see how velocities are related. Provides a snapshot of the process, along with the traces. (Author/ASK)

The advent of powerful, affordable output devices offers the potential for a vastly expanded landscape of computationally-enriched mathematical craft activities in education. Craft activities have both intellectual and emotional affordances that are relatively lacking in "traditional" computer-based education. Describes three software applications…

There are several possible approaches in which dynamic computerized environments play a significant and possibly unique role in supporting innovative learning trajectories in mathematics in general and geometry in particular. Describes an approach based on a problem situation and some experiences using it with students and teachers. (Contains 15…

Compares the inference and backtracking approaches to solving logic puzzles in computer environments. (Author/ASK)

Examines the effect of a technology-based educational innovation in a school's mathematics program on the knowledge and beliefs of students and teachers, based on recent reform recommendations. Emphasizes unrealized potential and missed opportunities for facilitation due to divergent beliefs of the social groups. Contains 42 references.…

While many technological capabilities are under development and may turn out to be an optimal future microworld, it is necessary to study the current widespread solution of supporting exploration and learning of school algebra with packages of mathematics software components. Describes and discusses software tools for school algebra. (Contains 45…

Reviews tasks and techniques to help students develop an appropriate instrumental genesis for algebra and functions to prepare for calculus. Focuses on the potential of the calculator to connect enactive representations and theoretical calculus. Discusses strategies to help students experiment with symbolic concepts in calculus. (Contains 32…

The emergence of powerful mathematical computing environments, the growing availability of correspondingly powerful (multi-processor) computers and the pervasive presence of the Internet allow for mathematicians, students and teachers, to proceed heuristically and "quasi-inductively." We may increasingly use symbolic and numeric computation,…