Algebra Education and Digital Resources: A Long-Distance Relationship?

This chapter considers the general question of how technology impacts mathematical contents for the case of algebra and addresses it from the conceptual notion of instrumental distance. It first provides an overview of perspectives on the teaching and learning of algebra in primary and secondary education. Next, it presents the theoretical lens of instrumental distance, used to study how these algebraic contents are transformed by digital tools. Using three examples of digital resources that cover different school levels and different types of design, the chapter shows that this lens indeed reveals how digital technology may create distance with respect to the regular algebraic contents and procedures carried out in the paper-and-pencil environment. The results thus raise awareness not only of new potentialities, but also of the complexity generated by technology. They suggest that being aware of the instrumental distance would be beneficial while developing digital resources and professional development programs that aim to integrate digital technologies into the teaching and learning of algebra.