The Process of Introducing New Tasks Using Dynamic Geometry Into the Teaching of Mathematics

Since 1997, there has been a very strong incentive from the French Ministry of Education for promoting the integration of information technologies in education at all levels. Among various actions, the Ministry provided a financial support for organizing pre and in service teacher education (IUFM) at national and local levels. The renewed curricula offer a real integration of technology into the teaching of mathematics and they claim the necessity of this integration: the use of dynamic geometry software programs and spreadsheets is compulsory. It is quite difficult to estimate the proportion of teachers making a real use of technology. But it should be around 20%. One can be surprised by the gap between the institutional situation promoting technology and the real situation in classroom. One can seek the reasons for this reluctance by the changes of several kinds introduced by technology: • changes in the concepts as mediated by the environment • changes in the tasks given to students • changes in the management of classroom, due to a growing autonomy of the student due to technology Technology allows new kinds of tasks revealing the meaning of theoretical objects. But creating these new tasks is not easy and requires time. We will present below the learning tasks of a new type allowed by dynamic geometry software and try to explain why it takes time for teachers to design and use these tasks. Examples will be given in Cabri­ geometry, existing both as a software program or application of the calculators TI 92, TI 89 and TI 83.