STEP is designed to help teachers and students make use of rich and interactive assignments in math classes, through the use of a wide range of technologies (cellular phones, tablets, laptops, and computers), and provide an automatic and accessible analysis of the students’ answers in a manner that would form the foundation for the teacher’s decision making in real time – during the actual course of the class.

STEP, as its name states, makes it possible to see the entire picture. By developing and preparing assignments which encourage the students to meaningfully engage with mathematics, teachers can immediately see each of the students’ work and receive visual analyses of their solutions. However, analyzing the correct answers and locating familiar mistakes through predetermined criteria is only the first step; we move far beyond correct/incorrect. STEP reflects the students’ working methods, and thus it makes it possible to use partial solutions, to present recommended work methods and even illuminate creative and diverse answers of the same assignment. The array of the visual representations for the data presents information for the teacher in an accessible form – only two clicks away – and thus it makes it possible to make decisions based on information extracted from the students’ activities. This is formative assessment par excellence. The STEP environment allows teachers to fashion different activities, which are composed from activities such as: introducing a topic, class activity, concluding assessment (exam), and even an online project.

Edumap –Making content and pedagogy tangible 

Textbooks are a vital ingredient for mathematics teachers’ lesson preparation and their pedagogical practice. As digital textbooks become prominent, teachers are coming to play a central role in curricular design, adding, removing and re-sequencing learning resources. This creates a critical need for tools that will support teachers in making informed curricular decisions. Our aim is to develop such tools, providing a window on the underlying structure and didactic balance of textbooks, to support teachers in maintaining the coherence of their textbook as they modify it.

Our development has two components: A tool for tagging mathematical and didactic metadata for individual tasks, and a dashboard - based on Keshif technology - that provides a tangible representation of this metadata for collections of tagged learning objects. An exposition of our work with the Keshif dashboard can be found on the Keshif blog.

A major challenge of our research is understanding how combinations of various categories of metadata can support teachers in making informed curricular decisions. Our design is based on a critical reading of relevant literature, combined with extensive work with practicing and pre-service teachers.

The current research & development of the VisualMath algebra & function textbook focus on the crucial aspects of support that teachers should get while they gradually become the responsible sustained authority for producing textbooks. For that to happen we started by redeveloping the interactive book that was originally developed by Web1 tools so it could be the basis for integrative and evolving beyond being interactive. Here are our working definitions: 1- the interactive e-textbook is based upon a set of learning objects: tasks and interactives (diagrams and tools) that can be linked and combined; the tasks are based on interactives that are an integral part of the textbook (rather than being ‘adds-on tools’) and the textbook functions only as e-textbook. 2- the integrative e-textbook refers to an 'adds-on' type model where often a digital version of a (traditional) textbook is connected to other learning objects that traditionally were not assumed to be part of textbooks such as learning management, course management, authoring tools to add or edit activities (by teachers), etc. 3- the evolving e-textbook refers to digital textbook which is permanently developing by input of practicing teachers’ developers or even students.

Chazan, D. & Yerushalmy, M.(2014). The Future of Mathematics Textbooks: Ramifications of Technological Change. In Stocchetti, M. (ed.), Media and Education in the Digital AgeConcepts, Assessments, Subversions, 63-76.

Yerushalmy, M., (2014) Challenges to the authoritarian roles of textbooks, In Proceedings of the International Conference on Mathematics Textbook Research and Development (ICMT-2014), Jones, Keith, Bokhove, Christian, Howson, Geoffrey and Fan, Lianghuo (eds.)Southampton, GB, University of Southampton, pp 13-20.

Yerushalmy M., (2013), Learning mathematics with digital textbooks: challenging authoring and authority, in Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching ICTMT11, Faggiano E. & Mondone A. (Eds), ISBN 978-88-6629-000-1, Bari, Italy, University of Bari, pp. 38 – 43. Click to read the PDF file

Interactive MathBook – The VisualMath: Function. Interactive Mathematics Text.

1. Interactive textbooks appear to be the tools of choice in mathematics instruction in the foreseeable future. The study analyses whether and how design functions of interactive texts which conducted by the semiotic framework may be tool for analysing curriculum materials, for examining the mathematical and pedagogical assumptions embedded in their design. 

2.The major challenge of the current study is to analyze how the designed features of the interactive text function in the interpretation of the curriculum materials and in designing teaching-learning processes by prospective teachers.

For research and publications view the Interactive Diagrams site

Digital Interactive Assessment: 

Studying the affordances and the effects of innovative design of mathematical tasks.

In the research study we focus on practices associated with eAssesment design and center on the functions of a multimodal text.

 The major objective of the study is to design a prototype eAssessment system that will enable us to explore the challenges and the affordances of innovative tasks’ designs to support faithful interpretation of students’ work on rich mathematical tasks from computerized records (in the context of functions and calculus).

Learning Calculus with Interactive and Dynamic Tools

The project is interesting in learning and understanding core ideas of calculus when it learn with multi representational and dynamic tools among high school students. Our research agenda cover three different aspects: first, the students' learning ( as objectification) and conceptualizing the integral concept graphically. Second, the role of the design of the multi representational and dynamic tools in the learning processes and its role in conceptualizing calculus ideas. Third, curriculum design of calculus core idea units to be learn among high school students. 

Sensory Learning. Integrating knowledge of learning with haptic technology with newly developed sensory software that offers children ways to explore the mathematics embedded in their motion.

Botzer, G. & Yerushalmy, M. (2008) Embodied Semiotic Activities and Their Role in the Construction of Mathematical Meaning of Motion Graphs. The International Journal for Computers in Mathematical learning. 13.

Botzer, G. & Yerushalmy, M. (2006) Interpreting motion graphs through metaphorical projection of embodied experience. International Journal forTechnology in Mathematics Education. 13(3).

Yerushalmy, M., Shternberg, B. (2006) Epistemological and cognitive aspects of time: A tool perspective. Journal for Research in MathematicsEducation Monograph 13. 

Shternberg, B., Yerushalmy, M. (2003)  Models of functions and models of situations: On design of a modeling based learning environment In H. M. Doerr & R. Lesh (Eds.) Beyond constructivism: A model and modeling perspective on teaching, learning, and problem solving in mathematics education.  pp. 479-500. Mahwah, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum. 

Math4mobile  The Math4Mobile project examines the opportunities of ubiquitous and personal technologies for educational purposes, specifically of using the mobile phone for teaching and learning mathematics. 

Designing setting for Mobile Mathematical Inquiry.

Math4mobile J2ME applications support archiving and sharing visual work with other students using short text messages. All the applications stress visualization and immediate feedback.

Mobile Gurukul proposes to utilize the pervasiveness of phones and mainly mobiles to enable a distance mentoring system for school teachers. By combining individual phones with web technology Mobile Gurukul attempts to help overcome the Digital Divide and to fill up the vacuum created in the rural because of lack of computers and power. It attempts to fill up the isolation of educators in the villages who often function as a single teacher at a primary school or as a single subject teacher in a secondary school. We are an open community and we believe that motivation, innovative ideas and long-term leadership are the qualities that would further advance rural education. MobileGurukul: Turning the Risk (of not knowing) to be an intellectual Springboard

Clickable Paper-printed Textbook (link to website) uses 2D barcode technology to turn a static, printed diagrams and exercises into interactive activities run by Java application. This innovation is driven by the assumption that printed texts are valuable and easy to use but should be enhanced by interactive activities. Developed by Arik Weizman – M.Sc. project at the Computer Science department, University of Haifa and with help from 3Gvision (2008)

Click2go – The Mobile Interaction System (link to web site) supporting teachers in orchestrating and assessing knowledge construction in large groups. Click2go website provides teachers a comfortable and easy system of communicating with their students who are registered to the specific course via their personal mobile phones. Developed by Ron Shahanovsky and  Gal Star – B.Sc final project (2009).