IT in university level mathematics teaching and learning: a mathematician’s point of view

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 elearning, 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 nonmathematician 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.