INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

The education world has been greatly influenced by rapidly changing technology and the increasing availability of information. Along with this development, new curricula have been established in Turkey, which make more and more important the skills of reasoning, interpreting, guessing and decision making. It can be said that information & communication technologies (ICT) utilizing skills contribute substantially to the improvement of the mentioned skills. It is also well known that, as it is emphasised by NCTM (2000), new technology enhances mathematics learning, supports effective mathematics teaching and influences what mathematics is taught. For this reason, in Turkey as well as in the worldwide, mathematics curricula require ICT use as an integral part of mathematics courses and suggest opportunities for pupils to use ICT as they learn. With the establishment of new curricula in Turkey, whether textbooks’ include ICT is an interesting research subject matter. In this study, the aim is to identify the intended use of ICT in elementary textbooks. To do this, 1st to 8th grades mathematics textbooks, teacher’s books, and student workbooks were analyzed carefully. At the end of the study it was determined that the books hits no ICT activities in 1st and 2nd grade while there are only a few in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades and more in 6th, 7th and 8th grades. In addition, it was revealed that textbooks made use of dynamic geometry software, calculator, and internet as new technological tools.