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Looking through Zones at the Teacher’s Role in Technology-Rich Teaching and Learning Environments (TRTLE’s) The equilibrium of teachers and teaching is inevitably altered by the availability of electronic technologies. It is imperative to establish what it is that enables teachers to perceive, attend to, and exploit affordances of the technology salient to their teaching practice and likewise for students in their learning about function. This paper focuses on one teacher and his teaching where technology use is expected by curriculum authorities. The aim is to show how Valsiner’s zones and Gibson’s affordances have been used as a theoretical framework to document the teacher’s role in integrating electronic technologies into his teaching. The students’ subsequent use of technology to support their learning is also examined. Thematic matrices have been used to identify manifestations of affordances, affordance bearers used, and the conditions enabling perception or promoting enactment of particular manifestations of affordances. These conditions, the latter indicative of the Zone of Promoted Action, have been used to identify teacher’s role as he canalises students’ current and future thinking about concepts and methods taught. The teacher’s approach also impacts on the Zone of Free Movement/Zone of Promoted Action complex of the future. Brown, J. (2006). Looking through Zones at the Teacher’s Role in Technology-Rich Teaching and Learning Environments (TRTLE’s). Accepted for The Seventeenth ICMI Study 17—Digital technologies and mathematics teaching and learning: Rethinking the terrain, Hanoi, Vietnam, December 2006. |