Communicating mathematics through the internet: A case study

Abstract

The Internet is enabling new forms of teaching and learning. Connecting, through the Internet teachers to teachers, students to students, students to teachers, and perhaps most important, bringing the world of information inside the classrooms is reshaping the classroom setting, the role of educators, and students’ perception concerning what they need to know. This study was intended to describe and analyze how students reacted to instruction delivered through the Internet, and their perceptions concerning the potentiality of the Internet to teach and learn mathematics. The setting for this study was the context of a college classroom, where participants were attending a mathematical communication and technology course. All students and the instructor were located physically in a mathematics computer laboratory in which the course content was presented to the students through the Internet. Data was collected from observations in the mathematics computer laboratory, and from semi-structured interviews using electronic-mail and unstructured open-ended interviews. Findings suggest that students had a deeper involvement in class activities due to the Internet links which created a more meaningful experience for them.