Mathematica In Education: Old Wine In NewBottles Or A Whole New Vineyard?

Abstract

On its own, a new piece of technology is not enough to change anything very much. Things change, in any field, not through technology alone but through way people use it. How people use it depends in turn on how they think about it. In early history of many technological innovations that went on to shape modern life profoundly there was a period in which innovation was seen, and therefore used, mainly as a new way of doing old things. The revolutionary potential of new technology lies, however, in our finding new things to do with it. The impact upon educational practice of powerful software like Mathematica has been less profound than optimists hoped or pessimists feared. In many classrooms, I argue, it may be used as an adjunct to a curriculum and pedagogy unaltered in its essence. I here compare some possible approaches to use of Mathematica with students, and ask of each one how close it comes to realising potential of software to transform experience and nature of mathematical learning. Version 3 presents our community with fresh challenges and fresh temptations. I show how Version 3, at same time as it opens up new, exciting avenues for educators, also makes it easier than before to bend Mathematica to old-fashioned pedagogic strategies that leave much of its potential unexplored. New tools for old jobs? One can't spend much time in technology-in-education circles without running into phrases like the effects of calculators on children's learning of arithmetic or the impact of computer algebra systems on traditional calculus curriculum. But no technological innovation, on its own, has any effects, still less any impact. Things don't have effects: actions do. What matters isn't what technology there is, but way that technology is used. Transactions on Engineering Sciences vol 15, © 1997 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533