Maria Dolores Lozano

Implementing Digital Technologies at a National Scale

In this chapter we describe a range of digital technology implementation projects that have been undertaken at a national scale in different parts of the world. These projects vary widely in breadth, in the digital technologies involved, in their relation to mandated curriculum and in their involvement of different stakeholders. We compare these different projects with a view to identify some significant trends that are currently developing in such efforts, and also with a view of guiding future large-scale implementation work. We also analyse the projects in terms of relevant theories of technology use in mathematics education.

Integrating Technology in the Primary School Mathematics Classroom: The Role of the Teacher

In this chapter, we analyse the role of the teacher when using digital resources in the primary school mathematics classroom in Mexico and its relation to students’ mathematical learning. We carry out this analysis through the use of an instrument that we developed in which we relate five different aspects of the role of the teacher we consider important with the three different uses of technology classified by Hughes (Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 13(2), 277–302, 2005) namely replacement, amplification and transformation. We use an enactivist perspective that considers learning as effective action in a given context (Maturana, H., & Varela, F. The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding, Revised Edition, Boston: Shambhala, 1992) in order to describe the way in which differences both in the uses of technology and in the role the teacher assumes in the classroom contribute to creating classroom contexts in which mathematical learning is promoted to different degrees.

Teachers Teaching Mathematics with Enciclomedia: A Study of Documentational Genesis

In this chapter, following the documentational approach (Gueudet & Trouche Educational Studies in Mathematics, 71, 199–218, 2009), we examine teachers’ development through the analysis of their appropriation and transformation of resources from “Enciclomedia”, a Mexican national project. To do this, we analyse information about three teachers’ interactions with “Enciclomedia” obtained from different sources: lesson observation, analysis of written materials, and interviews. The three teachers changed their practice in different ways as a result of using “Enciclomedia”. Each produced different kinds of documents in the process of incorporating the digital resources into their activities and in this process they transformed these material resources by using them in particular ways. It is possible to see that the introduction of the program “Enciclomedia” can influence teaching practices and documentational genesis in powerful and different ways, especially when it is accompanied by reflection and discussion with fellow teachers and researchers.