Nowadays, Information and Communication Technologies have grown as a fundamental
part of our daily lives and that is why it is our duty to make the best use of them in every
different context. Within the educational environment we have to be alert and to realise that an
appropriate use of ICT has to be much more than exposing the students to computers and to
allow them to sit in front of the screens. Our times demand changes such as new objectives, new
ways to teach the contents, new assessment systems: a new methodology which allows us to
make the best use of the ICT is highly demanded.
ICTs can play a very important role in the process of teaching and learning mathematics, but they are used correctly. Moreover, if they are not used properly, they can go from being a powerful tool to a barrier that impedes the process. ICTs are not the goal, but a means. In many cases, the error of ending up teaching a student the handling of certain applications instead of the mathematical contents we had originally proposed.
ICT in the process of teaching and learning mathematics is a topic that can lead us to thousands of reflections and to think about a lot of computer applications that could fit into this bag. Here we have outlined some strokes but there are four points that should be highlighted quite clearly:
- We are educating people to be an active part of the society in which they live and, in that society, ICT is present and will be more and more present.
- There are specific applications which, from a mathematical point of view, are wonderful, but we do not try to make our students mathematical or computer experts.
- ICT in general is a tool that facilitates the process of teaching and learning mathematics, but its use in the classroom requires an appropriate methodology, a remarkable methodological change.
- It is true that some/as students/as can do better with ICTs than us, so we should not feel insecure in the classroom when we handle them because what we want is not to teach them how to handle ICTs, but to be managed so that they learn mathematics.