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Technology Adoption in Mathematics Education: A Global Perspective
A Short Article Series
December 2005
Technology Use in Mathematics
Education
in
the United Kingdom
Douglas
Butler
UK
ATCM
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INTRODUCTION
This summary is being provided for
the 10th
Anniversary ATCM -
the Asian Technology Conference
in Mathematics, South Korea, December
2005. It represents the personal
opinion of the author, though it
largely consists of links to the
web sites of official bodies, and
links to educational resources created
in the United Kingdom.
The use of technology in mathematics
education in the UK has a rich history,
with early efforts inspired by the
amazing range of Acorn-BBC
computers, and its associated
BBC BASIC. This BASIC was the only
BASIC programming language (ever)
to include the “EVAL”
keyword as standard, thus allowing
complex mathematical expressions
to be made up from strings and evaluated.
This gave amateur and professional
programmers the enormous power to
create graphic tools without having
first to create a parser.
A wealth of mathematical
programs followed in the
80s and 90s that gave the UK a significant
presence in software design, and
an early realisation by mathematics
teachers that the subject could
usefully be observed dynamically.
From this promising start the use
of computers and
hand-held devices
has become widespread in British
schools, encouraged by the availability
of affordable ceiling-mounted projectors,
and some very generous funding from
Government sources.
However, a recent Inspectors'
Report on Mathematics and ICT
[pdf] (OFSTED) concluded:
”Despite significant government
funding, the use of ICT to promote
learning and progress in mathematics
remains a relatively weak and underdeveloped
aspect of provision”.
There is no obvious reason for this,
except possibly that the mathematical
use of ICT is more complicated than
its use in many other subject areas.
Mathematics teachers have to cope
with the use of dynamic software,
spreadsheets, web-based Java applets
and hand-held technology.... all
of this requires the teachers to
have the time and the inclination
to be trained. They also have to
be convinced that the rewards are
significant, and worth fighting
for.
The key is training,
and finding the time for it.
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