ABSTRACT
There are many ways in which information technology (IT) can assist the teaching of mathematical literacy by putting powerful mathematical tools in students’ hands, making real-world information easily available in the classroom, and presenting it in rich, interactive forms. Sometimes, this will also teach useful lessons about the use of such technology in work and personal life – but the time available, and the rapidly moving target of current technology, makes the teaching of valid, transferrable workplace IT skills a challenge, while the actual software tools used in the workplace can be highly specialised and complex to learn. So here we start by concentrating on ways IT can be used to help address the particular challenges of teaching for mathematical literacy, expanding on the multiple examples that appear elsewhere in the book. In Section 10.2, we start by looking at ways a computer can help in the modelling process, moving in Section 10.3 to roles in visualisations and simulations, and focusing on the use of video as a stimulus in Section 10.4. Section 10.5 addresses using realistic data sets, so central to mathematical literacy, while Section 10.6 is about error detection. Section 10.7 seeks to bring out the importance of units and orders of magnitude in technology. We conclude by pointing to some further opportunities in Section 10.8.
