Visum: Virtual Seminar for Education in Mathematics

VISUM the (VI)rtual (S)ystem for Ed(U)cation in (M)athematics is a fast growing knowledge base containing material about teaching mathematics (URL: http://visum2.uni-muenster.de). The project is funded by German ministry of science and education with 1.6 Million Euro and will cover mathematical as well a didactical content for the education of student teachers from primary to higher secondary level. Mainly written in German, the content will be translated into English in the coming years. When preparing knowledge for presentation in an Internet based multimedia system, special methods are needed to avoid for instance the "lost in hyperspace"-problem. The designer's answer to this problem is the so called Object Oriented Theme Analysis (OOTA) which is based on ideas coming from computer science, but adapted to the analysis of didactical knowledge about certain topics (e.g., arithmetic in the primary level, working aids, ...) The lecture will present this method, give a survey of the constructivist background of the system and the role of media (video, audio, ...) in the system, and show examples. The VISUM software creates a navigation platform, which can be used as an authoring tool by universities world-wide at the time of the conference there will be an online authoring tool for this purpose available. So, the lecture will contain an invitation to take part in the creation of a world wide network for teacher education in the field of mathematics.