DISTANCE TRAINING, A KEY MODE TO SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THE INTEGRATION OF ICT? Towards collaborative conception of living pedagogical resources

The integration of ICT into the teaching and learning of school subjects remains still rather weak, even in highschools. Changes in users’ practices required by such integration have probably been underestimated: teachers are obliged to question and change their professional practices. It turns out that standard training sessions towards ICT have been found to be unsuited for supporting teachers in overcoming their difficulties with this integration. This document describes a specific distance, in-service training organization, as well as its implementation and difficulties encountered in the process. A structure of resources has emerged from this collaborative virtual workshop towards the conception of pedagogical resources. Such long-term organizations could turn into efficient supports for teachers using ICT in classrooms. 1. Towards integration of ICT This paper is intended to focus on several aspects linked to the integration of ICT into the teaching and learning of mathematics. To focus on the problem of integrating technology into classroom practice requires theoretical and empirical research towards what can be an efficient use of technology: specifically this requires devising situations (Brousseau 1997), implementing them in classrooms and modifying them in order to be efficient and viable in these classrooms. It also requires conditions which would allow these situations to be reproduced more widely and training strategies which could favor the integration of ICT into teachers’ practices. Both could be realized through a collaborative conception of living pedagogical resources in teachers’communities of practice (Wenger 1998), communities already existing or to be built. In spite of many institutional actions and the enthusiasm of pioneering teachers, integration of ICT into teaching mathematics in secondary school is only slowly increasing in France, despite the rapid evolution of technological tools and equipment (Trouche, in Guin & al 2004). Similarly, a survey in Catalonia and France in 2003 (§4.4) gives evidence that more than 50% of mathematics’ teachers never use ICT (including internet and calculators) with students. This situation, which seems to be worldwide and not specific to secondary school teaching (Jones & Lagrange 2003), recently incited researchers to find reasons for this lack of computers use. A collaborative research project lead by 4 French research teams (Lagrange & al 2003) studied a comprehensive corpus of 662 published work: it was found that most papers were essentially focused on epistemological issues and on the learner.