IT in university level mathematical education

I updated my cumulative text  IT in university level mathematics teaching and learning: a mathematician’s point of view. It is a much expanded blending of two previous texts published in ALT News Online and in Research in Learning Technology.

Abstract: University mathematicians are often selective in their approaches to the use of IT in teaching. Although mathematicians systematically use specialist software in direct teaching of mathematics, as means of delivery e-learning technologies have so far been less widely used. We (mathematicians) insist that teaching methods should be subject-specific and content-driven, not delivery-driven. We oppose “generic” approaches to teaching, including excessively generalist, content-free, one-size-fits-all promotion of IT. This stance is fully expressed, for example, in the recent Teaching Position Statement from the London Mathematical Society and is supported by a recent report from the National Union of Students:

Not every area of study needed or was compatible with e-learning, and so to assume it would grant blanket advantages was not accurate.

This paper is an attempt to explain, at an informal level, this selectivity and its guiding principles. The paper is addressed to our non-mathematician colleagues and is not intended to be a survey of the existing software and courseware for mathematics teaching — the corpus of existing solutions is enormous and any technical discussion inevitably involves some hardcore mathematics.

Disclaimer. Needless to say, all opinions expressed in the paper are of the author and no-one else. This point needs to be emphasised because the paper contains some material which the author developed for background discussions during preparation of the Position Statement of the London Mathematical Society Use and Misuse of Information and Computer Technology in the Teaching of Mathematics at HE Institutions.  The author worked on the present paper in his private capacity, all views expressed here may or may not represent the position of the London Mathematical Society which does not bear any responsibility for the content of this paper.