New Multimedia Technologies as Tools for a Modern Approach to Scientific Communication and Teaching of Mathematical Sciences

This paper describes various technological tools and e-learning resources used by the authors in their work as university teachers and communicators of mathematics to a general public. As pointed out by recent developments in mathematics education research, a technology enhanced teaching may have significant potentialities at tertiary level: e-learning is an essential support to overcome some logistic obstacles such as the large number of students per teacher, the small number of hours of lesson available, the heterogeneity of the freshmen’s mathematical background. Moreover, a fine design of digital environments can foster an engaging, inclusive, flexible and meaningful learning of mathematical topics. In this paper we give a perspective on some educational experiments carried out with engineering students of Universita Politecnica delle Marche through specific functionalities of the Moodle platform (quiz, forum, workshop) and the dynamic geometry software Geogebra. We also report shortly on our approach to the use of new technological devices in the dissemination of scientific knowledge to a broader audience.