ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors provide a framework that helps to understand the gradual, manifold evolution of the roles of technology in mathematics education. The underlying idea is that the changes over the longer term amount to a process in which technology is gradually becoming “infrastructural.” While one can analyze relevant interactions from a collective, historical perspective, in mathematics education the authors must attend to the matter of how mathematics comes to be known through acts of teaching and learning, within schools, classrooms and individuals, in the short term. Computer Algebras System users comprise an example of a technology user community among technology users in Mathematics Education. One factor in technology’s being infrastructural is the matter of necessity, the fact that when the technology is fully infrastructural for a particular use, its use is necessary and not optional.
