Visiting researcher: Daniel Walter (June 6 – 8, 2017)

Recently, Daniel Walter, from the Technische Universität Dortmund, visited the Freudenthal group and presented his PhD research on “How children use Tablet-apps”.

Abstract

With the development of Tablet computers, discussions – some of them highly controversial – have increasingly arisen on questions regarding the expedient application of digital media in mathematics lessons across all school levels. This applies in particular to primary schools, for which no common ground can be found either on the question of “whether” nor the “how” in science and practice. The exceptionally wide spectrum of opinions on the use of digital media can amongst other things be reasoned by the fact that only a few research projects are available which focus in particular on student interactions with software and thus offer empirical findings on the clarification of the question. The objective of the research project presented is to record the methods of use by children of examples of software for Tablet computers in order to contribute towards closure of this research gap.