EDITORS NOTE

Education must change to keep pace with the demands of the present world. Learning in the 21
st

century must leverage on the affordances of new technologies, employ better pedagogies based on
recent research on pupil learning, and recognise and understand characteristics of a new breed of
learners.
The Ministry of Education (MoE) continuously advocates integration of technology in the teaching and
learning of mathematics to develop the intellectual capital and educate pupils to think creatively.
Effective use of technology requires teachers to introduce changes in teaching strategies and move
away from teacher-centred to pupil-centred activities; teachers need to take up the role as facilitators
and team members; furthermore teaching and learning has to change from memorisation and rote
learning culture to the culture of problem solving and generation of knowledge. Large investments in
technologies (including hardware, infrastructure and software) will go to waste unless teachers are
trained and given support to enable them to integrate technology effectively in their teaching and
learning.
The Geometers Sketchpad (GSP) is a dynamic explorative software that enable teachers to demonstrate
and visualise mathematical concepts. It also enables pupils to dynamically explore algebraic, geometrical
and trigonometrical concepts visually. On top of that this software also includes robust exploration in
areas of calculus. The GSP was first introduced to schools in Malaysia in 2002 when MoE distributed the
software to all government schools, colleges and higher learning institutions across the country.
Workshops were organised at federal, state and district levels to ensure that teachers of Mathematics
acquire the skill set necessary to use GSP in concretizing mathematical concepts. Feedback from
teachers emphasised the need for teaching and learning resources that integrates the usage of GSP.
Thus, this initial attempt was taken to provide teachers with the abovementioned resources which will
be improved and added on to from time to time. The MoE through the Curriculum Development Division
with the cooperation innovative and dedicated teachers had aggregated some objects developed in GSP
for use in the teaching of Mathematics.
The GSP teaching and learning resources may be accessed through our web portal,
http://www.moe.gov.my/bpk . Please note that GSP is proprietary software licensed to all government
schools in Malaysia and the materials posted here is for non-commercial use only. Therefore it is
strongly advise against any attempt to use these resources for commercial purposes. Teachers, pupils
and parents are encouraged to use these resources freely for educational purposes. Constructive
comments and suggestions aimed to improve the resources are much appreciated and welcomed.
Please forward your comments and suggestions, also any further inquiries to bpkmaths@gmail.com.
Last but not least, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude and sincere thanks to all the State
Education Departments, dedicated teachers from participating schools and individuals who had
contributed toward the initial production of the GSP resource materials.

Curriculum Development Division
Ministry of Education