The impact of interactive multimedia on kindergarten students ' representations of fractions

This paper reports initial findings from an intervention study evaluating the affordances of a variety of interactive multimedia tools on kindergarten students ' representations of fractions. The study engaged 21 kindergarten students in a whole-class technology-based mathematics intervention conducted over 12 weekly teaching episodes. A comparison group of a parallel kindergarten class of 22 students maintained their regular mathematics program. Dynamic visual tools, including the interactive whiteboard (IWB), digital learning objects (DLOs), interactive CDs and 'constructive ' software were utilised by the intervention class to promote concept development. The intervention students ' pre- and post-intervention drawings indicated substantial growth in cognitive infrastructure and symbolic notations. Qualitative analyses of the intervention students ' digital screen recordings and drawings provided complementary evidence of more advanced, flexible and alternative representations of fraction concepts than those displayed by the comparison group. Background In recent years there has been an exponential growth in the availability of technologica