[Maths-Education] ICT in Mathematics

[Alan Rogerson]

I came across this horror story, or cautionary tale, about the dangers 
lurking in for-profit "educational" organisations using, or should that 
be abusing, on line tuition, which may interest list members. It harks 
back to some previous comments (some extracts below) contrasting "vested 
interests" with "independent evaluation" of ICT and specifically on-line 
tuition.    See 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/ashford-university-for-profit-college_n_833735.html

As the article notes, this is an increasing and obviously profitable 
trend in the USA. As far as technology and computers in education are 
concerned, in general we should therefore never forget the GIGO principle.

On the same theme, this blog culled from another List is also relevant:  
"I have attempted in this blog to start to distinguish different aspects 
of public engagement, it is so often misused and industry doesn't really 
understand the term at all  .http://www.matterforall.org/blog/   Hilary 
Sutcliffe, Director, MATTER, Email: hilary at matterforall.org 
<mailto:hilary at matterforall.org>

Best wishes,
Alan

PS If you have found on line USA newspapers very pallid , you  might 
like to try the HuffingtonPost which is nothing if not different, and 
stimulating!

> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:33:01 +0100
> From: Alan Rogerson<alan at rogerson.pol.pl>
> To: Mathematics Education discussion forum
> 	<maths-education at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
> Subject: [Maths-Education] Re: ICT in mathematics
> Message-ID:<4D70F81D.1090100 at rogerson.pol.pl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Dear Sarah,
> .......................................... it behooves educationalists themselves to evaluate and
> assess the educational merits or otherwise of commercial products, this
> is simply a general statement of good practice, common sense even, it
> does not in any way impinge on the merits of commercial companies.
> Have you tried Google, most questions similar to yours can be answered
> by several hours work sifting through the many pages there? There are as
> you surely know many, many programmes, software, projects, and so called
> virtual schools handling ICT, but very much less objective or
> educational research being done on them. I was, however, very impressed
> with the Nationally supported Educational work on ICT coordinated from
> Chichester University, when I visited them for a day several years ago.
> You might like to ask them?
> Having worked myself in the field of ICT (as it is now called) since
> about 1966 could I also especially draw to your attention the Virtual
> School for the Gifted, now defunct but at one time the world's only
> genuine interactive virtual school, with whom I worked for ten years as
> a teacher, the last two years as Manager or Coordinator.  I believe it
> provided a very effective model for ICT learning and there was
> considerable anecdotal evidence of its success in helping children learn
> mathematics, and other subjects!
> Best wishes,
> Alan
>
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>>> Hi
>>> I am trying to find some evidence about whether ICT has a positive impact on attainment in mathematics and wonder if anyone has any good examples?  If you look at syntheses of research they tend to find little or no positive impact, over and above good teaching.  However, I believe there are some examples of where the findings are more positive, usually in terms of a particular kind of ICT in a particular context.  Can anyone let me know which are the key research reports in this area?  I am particularly interested in impact on attainment rather than motivation or engagement (even though ultimately this is likely to improve attainment), so ICT use that directly helps with understanding of particular concepts for example.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help.
>>>
>>> Sarah
>>>
>>> Sarah Maughan
>>> Director of Research
>>> National Foundation for Educational Research