Mathematics Education and the World Wide Web

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Klotz 95-54233 The Math Forum will be a virtual mathematics education and technology-transfer center that brings together four critical elements that must be integrated in order to realize the promise of the WWW for math education: teacher support and networking, math resource development, a well-designed WWW focal point for math education, and development of necessary WWW tools. Built on knowledge gained in the successful Geometry Forum project, the Math Forum will use the power of the WWW to weave public discussion forums, teacher education, interesting mathematics, and sophisticated archives into a productive community. New tools modeled on our existing software will be employed to create collaborative environments that enable public discussion with the full set of resources available on the Internet. Through interactive projects and facilitation of special topic discussions, students, mathematicians, and math educators will contribute to each other's work and provide the rich input, networking, and support sought by teachers for their ongoing professional development. Through the process of archiving and summarizing the activity of online communities and teacher groups, the Math Forum will build a collaborative math educational materials library. The Math Forum will collaborate with existing publishers and curriculum groups, such as those working on NCTM Standards materials, so that educators and students can participate effectively in the curriculum development process and the products can meet the needs of real classrooms. In the course of this effort many more well-developed curricular resources will become available online. In order for the archives to be useful and for math educators to make effective use of the WWW the Math Forum must adapt and create software tools and web site designs to meet their specific needs. Forum programmers will produce subscription software, evaluation tools, and structured resources that enable users to make sense of the overwhelming informatio n on the Internet. These tools will make it possible for participants to filter and evaluate resources and to move more directly to the task of constructing the environments they wish their students to explore. Furthermore, the Math Forum will develop interactive math projects that take advantage of the WWW for presenting engaging mathematics. Many of the experiments conducted here will have immediate and wide applicability in other areas of education and use of the Internet. A careful program of evaluation and outreach will bring regular reports to the broader educational community. Hired netsurfers and online support staff will keep the Forum on top of new developments and gather relevant resources while publicizing the Forum and establishing the resourcefulness of this pivotal venture.