Int J Comput Math Learning (2009) 14:217240 DOI 10.

1007/s10758-009-9157-7

Connecting and Integrating Theoretical Frames: The TELMA Contribution

` Michele Artigue Michele Cerulli Mariam Haspekian Mirko Maracci

Published online: 23 December 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract This paper presents the methodology developed within TELMA for connecting and integrating the theoretical frames used by the different teams for studying the design and use of interactive learning environments in mathematics education. Two case studies are then analysed and compared in order to illustrate the methodology and the results it can lead to. The papers ends by a more general discussion about the outcomes of the experimental work developed within TELMA and the perspectives it offers for approaching theoretical fragmentation. Keywords Mathematics education Technology enhanced learning in mathematics Technology enhanced learning Theoretical frameworks Integration of research teams Integration of theoretical frameworks Connection of theoretical frameworks Methodology TELMA ReMath

1 Introduction The rst article of this special issue (Bottino and Kinigos 2009) puts into evidence the existence in research in mathematics education of a multiplicity of different theoretical frames, poorly connected with one another, that develop more or less independently, and are inextricably bound to the different contexts from which they emerged. Research concerning ICT technologies does not escape this rule as evidenced for instance by the meta-study (Lagrange et al. 2003) but researchers in this area are perhaps more sensitive to the problems raised by the current fragmentation of the eld. One reason
M. Artigue M. Haspekian University Paris 7, Paris, France M. Cerulli (&) Institute of Educational Technology, C.N.R. of Genoa, Genoa, Italy e-mail: cerulli@itd.cnr.it M. Maracci University of Siena, Siena, Italy

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might be that this is because designers of educational artefacts try to develop tools that can migrate from one educational context to another one. Overcoming that fragmentation is an enterprise far from being easy. As evidenced for instance by the meta-study mentioned above, theoretical frames are not necessarily made explicit in the literature about technology, and even when they are, the way they are dealt with does not necessarily provide the reader with sufcient information about the way they have inuenced the research or development work. Moreover, many theoretical constructs in the mathematics educational eld are not still stabilized. Their meaning depends on who uses them, and in what particular context they are used. Behind supercial communication misunderstandings are thus quite frequent. From the beginning within TELMA, when exploring possibilities for collaboration and prerequisites for making it productive, we were aware of the existence of such difculties but we underestimated them. As is usual, we decided to develop a shared culture through mutual description, explanation and reading, selecting of course our respective publications in order to make the task as easy as possible. It was only when we experienced the limitations of such a strategy that we decided to develop specic methodological tools. We thus developed a specic collaborative practicethe cross-experimentation projectthat, taken as an object of study, would help us in clarifying what was needed in terms of theoretical integration for mutual understanding and productive collaboration, and how this goal could be reasonably achieved. In this article we describe and reect on the trajectory that developed from that moment and present the main results it led to in terms of theoretical integration, using for that purpose two case studies taken from this cross-experimentation project.

2 The TELMA Approach to Theoretical Fragmentation In this section, after making explicit the main principles underlying the TELMA approach to theoretical fragmentation, we introduce the notion of Didactical Functionality (Cerulli et al. 2007a) and the Concern Methodological Tool (Artigue 2005, 2007) which helped us to address this issue. As pointed out above, different terms can be used to label attempts made at overcoming theoretical fragmentation. In TELMA, from the beginning we used the term integration, but this term can be misleading and we will rst clarify the meaning we gave to it. In fact, this meaning evolved along our research work and is the result of a progressive and collaborative construction. Very soon, we became convinced that integration could not mean for us the building of a unied theory that would encompass the main theories we were relying on. The number and diversity of theories at stake made such an effort totally unrealistic. But discarding this ambition did not make clear what else useful could be achieved. The research team of the Institute of Educational Technology of Genoa (ITD), was in charge of producing a rst integrative description of the research activity of the different teams involved in the project. For this task ITD looked for a reading key, general enough and based on elements relevant for all the teams, to be used to describe and compare researches and theoretical frameworks. This was the origin of the notion of Didactical Functionality which served as a good means for performing a rst analysis and comparison between the research perspectives characterising the teams involved in the TELMA project. However, we realized that in order to develop an integrated approach to research we also needed a shared research practice. For this reason we developed a

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cross-experimentation [presented in Bottino and Kynigos (2009) involving all the teams]. The key idea was that each team would set up an experiment employing a technological tool developed by another TELMA team. The experiments would be run by each team in parallel, addressing similar educational objectives with pupils of a xed age range (1314 years old). These experiments would then be compared and analysed jointly by all the teams. To do that we realized that it was not enough to focusing on the reading keys indicated by the notion of Didactical Funcitonalities: thus we developed the notion of Key Concern as a tool for analysing and comparing more in details the experiments conducted by each team. Some principles piloted the dynamics that led us to dene the notion of Key Concern and we think it useful to explicitly discuss them. 2.1 Recognizing the Existence of Common Sensitivities The rst phase of the TELMA work had showed that, in spite of their diversity, the different TELMA teams shared common sensitivities. 1. For instance they were all sensitive to the social and cultural dimensions of learning processes, but according to their theoretical choices this sensitivity was supported by different constructs, from constructs elaborated inside the eld of mathematics education itself such as those related to the theory of didactical situations (Brousseau 1997) and the anthropological theory of didactics (Chevallard 1992, 2002) to more general constructs coming from activity theory (Engestrom 1991) or social semiotics (Halliday 1978). 2. They were also all sensitive to the way mathematical objects are implemented into Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs), such as ICT tools, and to the important cognitive and didactical consequences of this implementation, rejecting the common vision of technology as a simple pedagogical adjunct. But once more different approaches were used to express this sensitivity referring to the idea of semiotic mediation (Bartolini Bussi and Mariotti 2008), of computer transposition of knowledge (Balacheff 1994) or of instrumental genesis (Rabardel 1995; Verillon and Rabardel 1995; Guin et al. 2004). Moreover, according to the theoretical perspectives chosen, these common sensitivities were given more or less priority. Each team looked thus at the reality through different theoretical lenses leading to a coherent but partial view. Our rst analysis had convinced ourselves that the strength of each approach depended upon this particular coherence and would disappear if this coherence was diluted into a more global perspective. We thus considered important to develop a methodology allowing us to capture and preserve this coherence. 2.2 Looking at Theories in Operational Terms Another important point for us was to strengthen the connections between theory and practice. We shared the conviction that theories are tools for thinking and acting, that they are developed for fullling specic needs. We thus hypothesized that an adequate strategy for building connections between theories and constructs would be to approach them in operational terms, looking at the needs they try to respond to. Behind that hypothesis there was also the idea that, even if we live in different educational contexts, we are facing partly similar challenges and issues, and that trying to compare and connect the theoretical tools

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we develop for tackling similar or close needs, could be a productive way for initiating an integration process. 2.3 Relying on a Specic and Sharable Language The third principle was that communication and collaborative work between us had to be supported by an adequate language not dependent on a particular theoretical frame, allowing us to communicate in a way coherent with the two previous principles. The notion of Didactical Functionality and the Concern Methodological Tool described below helped us operationalize these principles.

3 Didactical Functionality and Concerns Methodological Tool The construct of Didactical Functionality (Cerulli et al. 2007a) was built with the aim of providing a common perspective, independent from specic theoretical frameworks, to address the variety of approaches (possibly depending on theoretical references) to the use of ILEs in mathematics education, and to link theoretical reections and actual uses of ILEs in given contexts. It is dened in the following way: With didactical functionalities we mean those properties (or characteristics) of a given ICT, and/or its (or their) modalities of employment, which may favor or enhance teaching/learning processes according to a specic educational goal. The three key elements of the denition of the didactical functionalities of an ICT tool are: (1) a set of features/characteristics of the tool; (2) a specic educational goal; and (3) a set of modalities of employing the tool in a teaching/learning process with respect to the chosen educational goal (op. cit., p. 2). To each component of the notion of Didactical Functionality (tool characteristics, educational goals, modalities of use), the Concern Methodological Tool associates a set of key concerns, expressed in the most neutral way. These concerns have been selected on the basis of the analysis carried out in the rst phase of the TELMA work. They express the main sensitivities evidenced by this analysis. The Concern Methodological Tool, structured around the three dimensions of the notion of didactical functionality, is the following (Artigue 2005): 3.1 Tool Analysis and Identication of Specic Tool Characteristics The analysis of a tool associated to the denition of Didactical Functionality generally involves two different dimensions: questioning on the one hand how the mathematical knowledge of the domain is implemented in the tool, and on the other hand the forms of didactic interaction provided by the tool. Both the implementation of the knowledge of the domain and the didactic interaction can be approached through different perspectives, which are not independent, neither mutually exclusive. The analysis and decisions resulting from the choice of specic perspectives are, among other factors, dependent on the theoretical frames referred to and on the ways these are used. These links are explored in the Concern Methodological Tool through the eight following key concerns:

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Concerns regarding the ergonomics of the tool (TE), Concerns regarding the characteristics of the implementation of mathematical objects and of the relationships between these objects (IMO), Concerns regarding the possible actions on these objects (AMO), Concerns regarding semiotic representations (SR), Concerns regarding the characteristics of the possible interaction between student and mathematical knowledge (ISK), Concerns regarding the characteristics of the possible interaction with other agents1 (IA), Concerns regarding the support provided to the professional work of the teacher (TS), Concerns regarding institutional and/or cultural distances (ICD). 3.2 Educational Goals and Associated Potential of the Tool With this respect the TELMA teams considered that the relationship between potentialities and goals can contribute to illuminate the role played by theoretical frames, complementing what is offered by the information provided by the analysis of the tool. It was thus decided to investigate the relative importance given in the denition of educational goals to considerations of an epistemological nature referring to mathematics as a domain of knowledge or as a eld of practice, considerations of a cognitive nature focusing on the student in her relationship with mathematical knowledge, considerations focusing on the social dimension of learning processes, and nally institutional considerations. This led to the introduction of four key concerns: Epistemological concerns focusing on specic mathematical contents or specic mathematical practices (E), Cognitive concerns focusing on specic cognitive processes, or specic cognitive difculties (C), Social concerns focusing on the social construction of knowledge, on collaborative work (S), Institutional concerns focusing on institutional expectations, or on the compatibility with forms and contents valued by the educational institution (I). 3.3 Modalities of Employing a Tool The design of the modalities of employing a tool for achieving an educational goal, and the a priori analysis of their implementation, suppose a multiplicity of choices of diverse nature. We hypothesized that only a small part of these were under the control of theoretical frames, explicitly or even implicitly, many others being dictated consciously or unconsciously by the educational culture and the particular context within which the realization takes place. Seven key concerns were thus selected for this third dimension: Concerns regarding contextual characteristics (CO), Concerns regarding the tasks proposed to the students including their temporal organization and progression (TA), Concerns regarding the functions given to the tool including the possible evolution of these (TF),
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Other agents can be the other students, the teacher, tutors as well as virtual agents such as the companions implemented in some ICT tools.

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Concerns regarding instrumental issues and instrumental genesis (IG), Concerns regarding the social organization, and especially the interactions between the different actors, their respective roles and responsibilities (SO), Concerns regarding the interaction with paper and pencil work or other media (PP), Concerns regarding institutional issues and especially the relationships with curricular expectations, values and norms, the distance with usual environments (ID).

4 Analysis of the Cross-Experimentation An explicit reective analysis accompanied the whole cross-experimentation process: from design and implementation (through the building of the guidelines) to a posteriori analysis (which led to the renement of guidelines). Comparisons between the different experiments were performed both in itinere during the whole duration of the cross-experimentation and a posteriori: teams were constantly required to produce specic documentation concerning the ongoing experiments, which was shared and discussed with the other teams. In addition, the a posteriori analysis entailed nal reective interviews, in which researchers directly involved in the design and implementation of an experiment were interviewed by researchers of the same team who were not directly involved in the experiments. Furthermore, each experimenting team performed a retrospective analysis of its own experiment, framed by the Concerns Methodological Tool. These analyses regarded the whole life-cycle of each experiment: design, implementation, data collection and analysis and a posteriori reection. More in details teams were asked to specify, for each concern, (1) whether it was addressed or not, (2) the importance given to it if addressed, (3) the associated problematization, (4) the language used and concepts mobilized, (5) the theoretical frames these expressions could be more or less directly related to, and of course, (6) the effect of these on the practical decisions taken in terms of design or analysis of the educational use of ICT.2 In the next section, we illustrate the results coming from the retrospective analyses of two experiments from the cross-experimentation project. These two case studies will help us to show how the notion of Didactical Functionality and the Concerns Methodological Tool can be practically used for analysing and comparing the role played by theoretical frames in experiments.

5 Two Case Studies The two case studies selected for this article are those involving teams of co-authors of this article. In their presentation, as announced, we use the notions of Didactical Functionality and Concerns Methodological Tool for understanding the exact role played by theoretical frames in the experimentations at stake. We distinguish the phases of design, implementation and a posteriori analysis, as the role played by theoretical frames differ between these.
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The detailed analysis of the whole cross-experimentation process is accessible on the TELMA website and specic results on the role played by theoretical frameworks can be found in Artigue et al. (2007) and Cerulli et al. (2008).

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6 The DIDIREM Case 6.1 Description of the Design The DIDIREM researchers3 used for their experimentation the ILE Ari-Lab developed by the ITD team. They carried out their experimentation with grade 2 pupils, working with two microworlds of Ari-Lab: the Money and the Abacus microworlds. ARI-LAB is a multi-environment tools system oriented towards the development of arithmetic problem solving abilities by researchers relying on activity theory (ARI-LAB2 2005; Bottino and Chiappini 2008). It provides support not only for individual problem solving but also for related social interactions between students and between teacher and students. A suite of eight microworlds supports the students problem solving by providing representations of concrete contexts and objects that can be manipulated in order to model a problem situation and to develop a solution strategy. In the experiment, two of these microworlds were used: Euro and Abacus. In the Euro microworld, the objects available are representations of notes and coins of various denominations of the Euro currency system (Figs. 1, 2). The user can generate and move coins and notes and can exchange them for others of equivalent value. When pupils change money, a feedback validates or invalidates the change as: a message species whether more money is needed, or whether too much has been taken. If ones want to rectify her answer, she has to put the corresponding banknotes in the trash and these simply disappear. In the Abacus microworld, an abacus is represented on the screen (Fig. 3). The user can insert, remove balls, and exchange selected balls for others of equivalent value. The educational goal of the Didirem experiment was the development of subtraction techniques for solving arithmetic problems involving bigger numbers than those these pupils were used to. Three sessions were designed. The rst session was centred around the use of the Money microworld, the second one around the Abacus microworld. In the last session, the competition between the two microworlds was open. The two-rst sessions obeyed a similar global scenario. They began by a collective introduction to the microworld using a video-projector, and the collective solution of a particular task, for instance nding various ways for exchanging a 100 euro banknote for the rst session. This phase was part of the devolution process. Then pupils were asked to work in pairs to solve tasks of increasing complexity. For instance, in the rst session, two tasks were planned: Find different strategies for completing an exchange of 125 euros starting with a banknote of 50 euros (task T1); You have the following banknotes: 50, 50, 20, 5 euros and you want to spend 90 euros. How do you do it? (task T2). A collective comparison of strategies and proposed solutions orchestrated by the teacher ended the sessions leading to some local institutionalization regarding both mathematical and instrumental issues. For the last session, a more complex problem, the traveller problem, was designed. Pupils could solve it using one or the other microworld. A collective discussion was designed to compare the potential of the two microworlds and of the associated numerical exchanges, with the intention of leading to a more global institutionalization. The use of terms such as devolution and institutionalization reveals the important role which the Theory of Didactical Situation played in the design of the experiment.

Claire Cazes, Jean-Philippe Georget, Mariam Haspekian, Fabrice Vandebrouck.

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Area displaying the text of the problem

Space for the money to be changed

Workspace for manipulating coins and notes picked from the area above

Button to erase the money on the table and try again the exchange

Button to check the exchange

Fig. 1 The Money microworld in Ari-Lab

6.2 Concerns and Theoretical Frames in the Design Phase The distribution of sensitivities between the different key concerns was not uniform in the DIDIREM design. For instance, in the tool analysis three concerns among the eight proposed were given the highest priority: the ergonomy of the tool (TE), interaction between students and mathematics knowledge (ISK), institutional and cultural distance (ICD). In the denition of the educational goals, the highest priority was given to epistemological (E) and institutional (I) concerns. For researchers reasonably familiar with the theoretical frames used by the DIDIREM researchers (the Instrumental Approach, the Theory of Didactical Situations and the Anthropological Theory of Didactics),4 this hierarchy is not surprising. The Instrumental Approach is based on constructs developed in cognitive ergonomy; the epistemological analysis of mathematical knowledge is essential in the Theory of Didactical Situations, and the notion of institution is a primary object in the Anthropological Theory of Didactics. 6.2.1 The Inuence of the Instrumental Approach and the Anthropological Theory of Didactics on Design We analyze the inuence of these two frames jointly as they strongly intertwine in the DIDIREM work, particularly in the design and the implementation phases. Once more, this
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The reader not familiar with these theories will nd good introductions accessible on line in (Wareld 2006) for the theory of didactical situations, and (Bosch and Gascon 2006) for the anthropological theory of didactics. For the instrumental approach see for example (Artigue 2002).

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Not enough money on the table for this exchange

The microworld provides a feedback about the exchange

Fig. 2 Exchanging money in the Money microworld

Buttons to add or subtract a ball on a road.

Different roads for representing numbers in the positional decimal system

Button to exchange 1 ball of the selected road into 10 balls of the neighbour road on the right.

Fig. 3 The Abacus microworld in Ari-Lab

is not surprising, as the Instrumental Approach results from a partial integration of ideas of cognitive ergonomy and Anthropological Theory of Didactics. These theoretical frames played a role in the choices made by the team during the design process in two different ways: the rst linked to cultural and institutional concerns, the second to the tool ergonomy concern and the sensitivity to instrumental needs. In both cases, one can observe choices piloted by the will of exploiting the learning potential of Ari-Lab while maintaining an acceptable distance with the usual environment and taking into account the limitations introduced by the limited number of sessions available for this experimentation. For example, the team discarded a rst possibility chosen by other teams experimenting with Ari-Lab: using the Fraction microworld based on the representation of rational numbers on the real line with grade 8 students. The rationale underlying this choice can be summarized as follows: Thales theorem is necessary for understanding the way fractions are represented in this microworld. In France, this theorem is usually introduced in the curriculum later than fractions, and experimenting on fractions at the time of the year

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planned for the experimentation would have asked the teachers to change the mathematics organisation of the academic year, or to consider the representation as a black box. Because of the characteristics of the French institutional context and of the short time available for the experimentation, these two options were considered equally not feasible. The group thus gave up its initial plan, and considering the other microworlds offered by Ari-Lab moved to the idea of experimenting at elementary level. The anthropological approach also inuenced the choice of the didactic goal, making the group especially sensitive to the necessary compatibility of this choice with the didactic goals of the teacher at that time of the academic year (Institutional Concern). The group was also sensitive to the professional overload that could result for the elementary teacher involved from an experimental design too distant from her usual practices. She had volunteered but had little experience of working with researchers. As mentioned above, Instrumental Approach made also the DIDIREM researchers especially sensitive to the ergonomy of the tool. The inspection they made of Ari-Lab for identifying its didactical functionalities, explicitly relied on criteria used in ergonomics for analysing educational multimedia tools,5 adapting these to the specic context at stake. Ergonomic analysis thus contributed to the selection of the two microworlds and to the identication of the respective components which would have been ofcially introduced. This selection being made, the fundamental concepts of the Instrumental Approach: instrumentalization, instrumentation and instrumental genesis supported the design itself: the organization of the rst encounter with the two microworlds, the denition of the tasks proposed to the pupils and the planning their management, keeping in mind that the instrumentalization needs had to be limited in such a short experiment (IG Concern). The Instrumental Approach was also engaged in anticipating the knowledge to be institutionalized, especially knowledge related to the tool itself and the instrumented strategies and techniques. 6.2.2 The Inuence of the Theory of Didactical Situations on Design The tools of Instrumental Approach and above all, those of the ergonomic analysis, were rather new didactic tools for the group of young researchers, and this characteristic made their use frequently a conscious decision. This was not the case for the Theory of Didactical Situations which was quite familiar to them. Identifying up to what point this theory was engaged in the reection they developed and in the decisions they took, was thus more difcult. The retrospective analysis carried out shows that this theory has also played an important role in the analysis of Ari-Lab and in the selection of the two microworlds. It supported for instance the particular attention paid by the group to the available actions offered to the pupils, to the nature of the feedback possibly received. These characteristics were interpreted using the notion of milieu, which is central in the theory (ISK concern) and the notions of feedback provided by the milieu and of validation which are also theorised in this frame. The Theory of Didactical Situations led the researchers to distinguish between, on the one hand, feedback consisting in a validation of the pupils answers and, on the other hand, feedback more elaborated and more likely to support the evolution of pupils strategies and mathematics knowledge. Some microworlds were thus eliminated because the system of feedback they proposed was much too limited as compared with what is generally expected from a learning milieu in the Theory of Didactical Situations.
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Especially, criteria such as utilisability, utility and acceptability (Tricot et al. 2003).

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The Theory of Didactical Situations did not directly inuence the denition of the educational goals of the experiment. These emerged from discussions between the researchers and the teacher, considering the mathematical progression of the class. At that time of the year, these pupils had developed some understanding of the principles underlying numeration in base 10 and had used these for counting and adding, but they were not very familiar with three digit numbers and had no knowledge of the standard algorithm for subtraction. It was hypothesized that experiencing the exchange procedures reied in the two microworlds, pupils would increase their mathematical power and develop strategies for solving rather complex subtraction problems. It was also expected that the comparison of the respective efciency of the strategies supported by the two microworlds would make them aware of the interest of decompositions tightly connected to the numeration principles, preparing thus a collective move orchestrated by the teacher from craft strategies to the standard algorithm to be taught. This educational choice and strategy clearly relied on the researchers and teachers didactical knowledge regarding the conceptual eld of numbers. One can nevertheless see the indirect inuence of the Theory of Didactic Situations in the accent put on the comparison between different strategies, and in the fact that decompositions in base 10 were expected to impose as optimal strategies for solving a class of mathematical tasks. The inuence of the Theory of Didactical Situations is more evident in the precise design of the modalities of use, both in the global organization of the didactic scenario, and in the detailed elaboration of each session. As already pointed out in the description of the design, specic attention was paid to several elements which are precisely constitutive of the Theory of Didactical Situations as the devolution and institutionalization processes, the denition of particular tasks within a given type of tasks by xing values for didactic variables, and the organization of the mathematical progression through the evolution of these didactic variables (TA concern). In addition, it was expected that working in pairs in the microworld environment, pupils would be able to assume the mathematical responsibility of solving these tasks, that is to say to solve these in a-didactic interaction with the milieu, without substantial help from the teacher. In the data collected, the inuence of the Theory of Didactical Situations is also visible in the a priori analysis made by the DIDIREM researchers. In this analysis, they discuss the choice of didactic variables, evaluate the a-didactic potential of the scenario, and infer from this evaluation the possible sharing of mathematical responsibilities between the pupils and the teacher in the different phases of the work, and what the teacher could do to enrich the a-didactic milieu, if necessary (SO concern). 6.3 The Implementation of the Design Some changes to the initial design were introduced in its implementation. The difculties met during the second session obliged the group to adapt the design of the third session. The third session thus began by a collective solution of the most complex subtraction problem proposed in the second session with the Abacus microworld, the teacher helping the pupils to keep in mind the successive phases of the strategy. The session went on then as initially planned by posing a new problem introducing a new context (train travellers) for which the pupils were free to choose the microworld they wanted to use: A train from Paris to Tours leaves Paris with 545 persons on board. It has one stop at Orleans, where 590 travellers get on the train and 237 get off. How many people are in the train when it arrives at Tours?. But there was no enough time for carrying out the collective associated phase as initially planned.

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6.4 Theoretical Frames and Concerns in the a Posteriori Analysis The a posteriori analysis of the design implementation shows a new distribution of priorities among concerns. A great importance is still given to interaction between pupils and mathematical knowledge (ISK concern), to the organization and progression of tasks (TA concern), to instrumental issues (TE and IG concerns), but on the one hand, the level of priority given to institutional issues strongly decreases (ICD, I and ID concerns), and on the other hand, two new concerns are given a high priority: the cognitive and the semiotic concerns (C and SR concerns). New theoretical frames also enter the scene such as the semiotic approach developed by Duval (1995). How to explain such differences? In coherence with the Theory of Didactical Situations, in the a posteriori analysis emphasis is put on the comparison with the a priori analysis, and through this comparison, on the understanding of discrepancies and unexpected events. This leads to more attention being paid to cognitive issues, the pupils being seen as individuals, each of them with her cognitive specicity, and not just as the generic pupil of the a priori analysis. This increases also, as will be shown below, the sensitivity to semiotic issues, and the need for complementary theoretical frames able to support this sensitivity. Institutional concerns, which had played a major role in design, become less apparent, and the pupils behaviours are not interpreted as the reection of institutional norms and practices. In this particular context, the conceptual tools provided by the Theory of Didactical Situations, for instance the notion of didactic contract, seem more useful to the researchers. As pointed out above, the experimental scenario had been designed to allow the pupils to a-didactically meet the necessity of exchanges in solving subtraction problems, to experience different exchange strategies and compare their respective performance. A collective introduction to each microworld had been organized in order to take into account the instrumental needs, and efforts had been made in order to limit these needs. Attention had also been paid to offering the pupils the possibility to keep trace of their manipulations by giving them screen copies they could ll on separate sheets of paper. The possible sharing of mathematical responsibilities between the pupils and the teacher had been discussed, and also in addition to the progression of the tasks, the succession of collective and individual phases. All these choices were made for optimizing the pupils mathematical responsibility. Thus the group was surprised with the reactions of the pupils when they were proposed with task T2, and later with their difculties with the Abacus microworld that they found to be very congruent with the numerical school culture. In the following, we show the role played by the different theoretical frames in the analysis of these episodes. 6.4.1 Difculties with Task T2 in the Money Microworld In the two-rst sessions, the collective phases globally worked as planned and let the group think that the instrumentalization process had been adequately engaged. For task T2, it was thus expected that the pupils would try to exchange some of the banknotes in order to get 90 euros, implementing the exchange procedure they had just learnt and successfully used in T1. Task T2 was thus seen in continuity with the previous tasks, which was not the case, for the following reasons at least: In the previous tasks, exchange was the explicit goal of the task, this was no longer the case in T2. Pupils were asked to nd by themselves that exchanging was a good strategy, and they had to decide what to exchange.

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There was also a change in the nature of the task. Pupils were not asked to pay 90 euros nding a way for giving the exact amount of money, they were asked How do you do it?, a strategic and thus meta-question. For these young pupils, this was not a minor change. The group had tried to organize a progression in the complexity of the tasks, and thought that the milieu provided by the previous tasks was sufcient for allowing an a-didactic functioning. Instead of it, they had created what the Theory of Didactical Situations calls an informational gap generating a real discontinuity. This episode attested for them the difculty they had as researchers not specialized except for one of them in elementary school mathematics to adequately anticipate the possible effects of the didactic variables at stake. One of the possible reasons of the pupils difculties with the task T2 is that they tried to pay 90 euros, adapting to the microworld the kind of gesture they would make in the outside world. In the outside world for instance they would give two 50 euros banknotes and would be given back 10 euros. But these gestures were not easily transposed in the Money microworld, a microworld not designed in order to be congruent with the outside reality, but to exploit objects, operations and relations, linked to money for the learning of arithmetic. Moreover, when banknotes are put in the trash, they disappear and the problem becomes cognitively more complex to solve. The user has then to nd mentally, or by using paper and pencil means, what remains to be paid, or, alternatively, to keep in mind what she has already paid while trying to complement to 90 euros. Added to the instrumentalization of a new artefact, this created cognitive overload for these young pupils. Thus, what they did, can easily be interpreted in terms of the Theory of Didactical Situations. In order to cope with the didactic contract and play their student role, they transformed the task, using AriLab for decomposing 90 euros, and restoring in some sense the lost continuity. When task T2 was rephrased by the teacher into What remains to you when you have spent 90 euros?, it became a more ordinary subtraction task, and this opened the way to another use of the Money microworld, liberated from the real world pressure. 6.4.2 Difculties with the Abacus Microworld Due to the reference to Instrumental Approach, the group was sensitive to instrumental issues, but a posteriori had the feeling that this sensitiveness was not enough for anticipating all the instrumental needs and how these could be efciently taken in charge within the strong constraints of this short experiment. For instance, they had strongly underestimated the complexity of the development of a subtracting scheme involving exchanges in the Abacus microworld. They were trapped by the congruence between this system of representation and the decimal system (Duval 1995) and by the fact that, thanks to the possibility of having more than ten balls on a stick, this virtual abacus was less requiring in terms of mental calculations than an ordinary abacus. Pupils were in fact tempted to start by subtracting what they could subtract without performing exchanges but then had to remember what had been subtracted and determine what remained to be subtracted. As they did not take notes, they quickly became lost in a mixture of exchanges and subtractions. Analyzing these difculties, the researchers understood up to what point they had underestimated the instrumental needs of this specic microworld.6
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Note that the Abacus microworld offers the possibility to mark the balls to be subtracted with a sign, but DIDIREM researchers were not familiar enough with Ari-Lab and did not know this possibility.

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6.5 Conclusion The above synthesis shows the dialectic links existing between theoretical frames and concerns while designing and analysing this experimentation. The respective priority given to the different concerns by the DIDIREM researchers becomes understandable when we take into consideration the main theoretical frames supporting their work. Key concerns drove the design process. They drove it in a way which is dependent on the methodological and conceptual tools provided by the theoretical frames used, but also on the systems of values these theoretical frames convey about mathematics education. Moreover this inuence was more or less conscious for the researchers. Familiar constructs were often used in a naturalized way and this is also the case when values are considered. For that reason, the reective interviews introduced in the cross-experimentation methodology and mentioned above were especially productive. It is also worth noticing that even if important, the role of theoretical frames and concerns in shaping the design was limited. The DIDIREM interviews evidenced that there was a gap between what the theories offered and the decisions to be taken in the design. The researchers knowledge about the conceptual numeric eld contributed to ll the gap but a lot of design decisions were also determined by usual habits and experience and not under the control of theory. The same occurred in the implementation. This is only one case study and does not authorize generalization. It is thus interesting to compare with the second case study presented in the following part.

7 The ITD Case 7.1 Design of the Experiment The ITD researchers7 centred their experiment around the use of Aplusix, a computer algebra system, developed by the MeTah team, that allows students to manipulate algebraic expressions, equalities and inequalities providing a real-time feedback on the correctness of these calculations (Nicaud et al. 2004). In particular, the mainly exploited feature was Aplusix feedback on the equivalence between expressions. The software provides a three values feedback: black lines connecting expressions (or relations), if they are equivalent; red crossed lines connecting expressions (or relations), if they are not equivalent; blue crossed lines connecting the expressions (or relations) if one of them is not well-formed. ITD used Aplusix for a remedial intervention concerning fractions for grade 7 students, as described in Cerulli et al. (2007b, pp. 723). The experimentation consisted of 5 weekly sections of 2 h; it was conducted during the regular school hours and took place in computer laboratories where groups of two or three pupils worked together with a computer. All the sessions had basically the same structure: pupils were given a worksheet written on a sheet of paper; and were asked to work at the tasks; teacher and researchers walked around the lab checking what pupils did, helped them when needed, encouraged them to verbalise what they were doing both in oral and written form; in specic moments classroom discussions were organised and orchestrated to institutionalise pupils ndings.
7

Michele Cerulli, Bettina Pedemonte and Elisabetta Robotti conducted the experiment, while Rosa Maria Bottino conducted the nal interview.

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The tasks involved the equivalence of fractions, and the properties of fractions and of the operations with fractions, whereas operational competencies were not in focus. In general, students were required to reproduce a specic Aplusix expression tree (provided on a paper work-sheet) and to substitute the question marks with proper numerical values. The chosen tasks could be accomplished in many different ways: as a matter of fact researchers meant to foster the generation of pupils spontaneous strategies as starting points for the teaching sessions. 7.1.1 Example Students were asked to reproduce within Aplusix the following tree and to substitute the question marks with proper fractions in order to obtain inequalities; analogous tasks were given with expressions or equalities instead of inequalities (Fig. 4). The intention was to orient pupils attention towards the comparison between statements (or expressions) instead of towards the computation of expressions. Moreover pupils were requested to describe in a written form the procedures followed to accomplish the task so as to promote the process of verbalisation. In the next sections we make explicit the main concerns which affected the design of ITD experiment, and discuss the link between theoretical frameworks and these concerns, and the way they oriented the design of the experiment. This discussion results from an a posteriori reection on the ITD experimentation. 7.2 Concerns and Theoretical Frames in the Design Phase Different concerns appear to have affected the design of the experiment to different extents. As for the tool analysis the highest priority was given to AMO, IMO and ISK concerns. In the denition of the educational goals ITD was mainly sensitive to cognitive concerns (C) as well as epistemological one (E). While TA, TF, SO and ID concerns led the design of the modalities of use. The theoretical frameworks used, more or less consciously, by the group were the Activity Theory, the Theory of Microworld and Situated Abstraction (Noss and Hoyles 1996), and the Theory of Semiotic Mediation (Bartolini, Bussi and Mariotti 2008). In particular, in the design of the experiment, the ITD team seemed mainly concerned with three aspects which are crucial in the mentioned theoretical frameworks, even if with some differences: the learning environment, the social interaction among the different actors, and the mediating role assigned to the tools. The focus on those aspects both reveals and consistently reects upon the different sensitivities with respect to the different concerns mentioned.

Fig. 4 Students are requested to ll-in the tree

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7.2.1 The Notion of Learning Environment Consistently with the Activity Theory, the ITD team perceived a learning environment as a whole: it attributed importance not only to the technological tool used but also to the pedagogical activities in which the use of the tool was integrated, to the way in which these activities evolved, to the social interactions that took place during the activities, and to the roles assumed by the different actors. The learning environment was conceived as the enactment of the teaching/learning activity oriented towards an object (the learning of properties of fractions) involving the students, the researchers, the teacher, and the tools used (not only Aplusix but also, for example, the worksheets). As a consequence, the learning environment evolved step by step as the experiment progressed and could not be planned in details in advance. On the one hand a general plan of the sessions was prepared, on the other hand ITD researchers planned to attend the teaching sessions and to meet teachers after each one. During such meetings, the development of the session would have been discussed (on the basis of eld observations), and then the organisation of the following sessions would have been questioned, possibly rened or even radically changed. The decision of continuously discussing and rening the experiment in itinere in straight co-operation with the teachers, reveals ITD high sensitivity towards concerns regarding the tasks proposed to the students, including their temporal organisation and progression (TA concern) and regarding the social organisation between the different actors, their respective roles and responsibilities (SO concern). 7.2.2 The Social Interaction Among Actors Though the learning environment was rened as the experiment progressed, ITD team intended to dene a priori the social organisation between the different actors of the teaching sessions as much precisely as possiblestill revealing ITD sensitivity to SO concern already highlighted. Pupils were asked to work in pairs (or small groups) with Aplusix and to ll in worksheets together: that is they were asked to produce a common solution to the proposed tasks. The requirement of producing a common solution was meant to foster a process of negotiation and evolution between pupils of the strategies and meanings emerging through the activity with Aplusix. Teaching sessions were devoted to classroom discussions. Such discussions were orchestrated by teachers and researchers and aimed at making pupils personal strategies and meanings emerge during the previous activities evolving towards shared mathematical meanings. The planning of this kind of activity relied explicitly on the Theory of Semiotic Mediation and shows a particular attention to the social construction of knowledge (concern S), and to the relation between the personal meanings emerging from the use of the tool and the mathematical meanings (revealing the team concerns about IMO and ISK). Clearly, the denition of the social interaction regards also the interactions between teachers and researchers. Hence, it includes the decision of conducting regular meetings to discuss the progression of the experiment. But it also includes the specication of the respective roles of teachers and researchers during the teaching sessions. In that respect, teachers and researchers agreed that they would have played as much as possible the same role throughout all the teaching sequence: both during pupils work with Aplusix and during the collective discussions.

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7.2.3 The Mediating Role of the Tools The reference to the Activity Theory and the Theory of Semiotic Mediation oriented the researchers to focus on the mediating role that different tools would be able to play. The analysis of Aplusix, and in particular of the functioning the different visual feedback it provides (e.g. red or blue crossed lines), led ITD team to hypothesise that Aplusix could be used to mediate mathematical meanings related to the notion of equivalence of fractions and to the operations with fractions. The analysis carried out makes clear ITD sensitivity to concerns regarding the functions given to the tool (TF concern), the characteristics of the implementation of mathematical objects (IMO concern), the possible actions on these objects (AMO concern), and the characteristics of the possible interaction between student and mathematical knowledge (ISK concern). Coherently with the theory of Situated Abstraction, the sessions designed by ITD were supposed to let pupils explore as much freely as possible the Aplusix environment: the proposed tasks were open; the activities were oriented towards the building of procedures; nally Aplusix was integrated with other tools (such as paper-based work sheets) in a network of relationships including students, researchers and the teacher (concerns TA, PP, SO and IA). This was considered by ITD as an effective means to exploit Aplusix potentialities. On the other hand, as the Theory of Semiotic Mediation points out, the simple accomplishment of tasks by means of a tool cannot ensure the evolution of personal meanings emerging through the activity with the tool towards mathematical meanings. According to this theory, the evolution can be fostered through collective discussions orchestrated by the teachers who assume this evolution as a specic educational goal. In particular ITD was especially sensitive to the processes of verbalisation, which was assumed to support students in the process of building new strategies and validating their work, and to make students gain awareness of the processes enacted (concern C). Consistently, verbalisation was fostered throughout the whole experiment at different stages fostering the process of building new strategies and validating the work done. 7.3 A Bit More on the Design Phase So far we described how different theoretical frameworks inspired the design of the experiment and how they are related to different concerns. But in the design, ITD was also sensitive to concerns which were not rationalised or operationalized through the reference to specic theoretical frame.8 For instance, important decisions concerning the design were shared between the ITD researcher and the experimenting teachers. In particular the teachers asked to use Aplusix for remedial activities rather than for introducing new mathematical notions. This request was motivated with different but complementary considerations: the shortness of the experiments; the fact that the experiments took place at the beginning of the school year in two 7 grade classes (the second year of Italian lower secondary school); the fact that students were not, in general, very procient in mathematics. Then it was agreed to focus on fractions. In addition, being conscious of the need for pupils and teachers to have time enough for appropriating the proposed approach and making it effective (concern ID), ITD designed in
8

We are not claiming that such concerns cannot be related to or operationalized in any theoretical frameworks. We simply stress that this was not the case for ITD experiment.

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agreement with the teachers an experiment as long as possible within the constraints of the TELMA cross-experimentation. Sensitivity towards concerns I, ID and CO is thus apparent. 7.4 The Implementation of the Design During the implementation of the experiment the researchers posed their attention also to specic concerns such as TE, IA and CO, as illustrated below. 7.4.1 Concerning the Tool Ergonomy (TE) In Aplusix, when introducing a new expression or relation between expressions one has to select the kind of task (s)he is going to accomplish; only four kinds of task are possible: Calculate, Develop, Factorise, and Solve. The label associated with the selected kind of task appears, and one can introduce the desired expression. The kind of task designed by ITD (based on comparing and completing expressions rather than modifying them with standardised procedures) escaped this categorization. In order to be able to use Aplusix for approaching them, one had to ask pupils to formally select one of the four available kinds of task, at one time ignoring their selection. Hence this initial required selection was used as a black box command for inserting new expressions or relations. In synthesis ITD forced Aplusix constraints so as to use the tool for the different type of problems. According to the experimenting team this black box use of the activity selection command did not cause any difculty to the pupils. The introduction of Aplusix to the pupils was performed step by step by the researchers interacting with the students in pairs (or small groups) seated at the computer. No difculties concerning the interface commands were reported, instead some difculties arose linked with the mathematical knowledge at stake (e.g. difculties in writing an expression correctly). The main features of Aplusix exploited during the experiments were the feedback provided by the system and the possibility to build undetermined expressions (with question marks). 7.4.2 Concerning the Interaction with Other Agents (IA Concern) According to the original design of the experiment pupils were not allowed to use calculators to execute numerical computations. This decision was taken because recovering or reinforcing computation skills were among the educational goals of the experiment. Afterwards it was realised that the skills in focus did not really concern the actual execution of numerical computations. The main focus was, instead, on the abilities concerning the evaluation of which kind of calculations should be performed, and when and why they should. Consequently, pupils were allowed to use calculators to execute computations during the implementation of the experiment. Nevertheless most of the pupils performed calculations with paper and pencil using standard algorithms. 7.4.3 Concerning Contextual Characteristics (CO Concern) As for the actors role, at the beginning it was planned that the teacher and the researchers would have played the same role, consisting basically in the orchestration of

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the classroom discussions and in the institutionalisation of the meanings emerged. Nevertheless, in one of the classrooms, the teachers assumed a very passive attitude during the sessions and all the activity was run and managed by the researchers. Classroom discussions were rarely accomplished. Instead, discussions among groups of students took place. In the other classroom, the discussions were often carried out and orchestrated by the teacher and the comparison of strategies enacted by the different groups of students assumed an important role in the activity. Because of the different teachers behaviours, the modalities of employment of the tool had to be consequently adapted on the spot. 7.5 Some Indications from the a Posteriori Analysis In the a posteriori analysis conducted by the team the focus was put mainly on the denition of the didactical functionalities of Aplusix enacted in the experiment. In particular, the team tried to identify the characteristics of the experiment which, according to the theoretical hypothesis and on the basis of the observations, could be considered as necessary conditions for the effectiveness of the proposed approach. In other words, ITD attempted to identify those characteristic of the experiment that they would leave unchanged in a hypothetical new experiment. As will be apparent from the following paragraphs, concerns TA and TF mainly drove the process of analysis of the experimentation. As already stressed, the mainly exploited feature was Aplusix feedback on the equivalence between expressions. This kind of feedback helped students to accomplish the proposed tasks and to validate the solutions developed in paper and pencil, without the intervention of the teacher. The team observed that such feedback supported effectively pupils in testing, trying out or exploring solutions for the proposed problems. The request for pupils to verbalise their strategies in written forms turned out to be an important step toward the explicit and de-contextualised formulation of a strategy, needed to share the strategies within the class. Nevertheless, once a strategy was made explicit, there was still the need to validate and institutionalised it, and this could not be done by Aplusix: the intervention of the teacher was needed. 1. The teacher proposed pupils to apply the developed strategies for solving new problems, purposefully designed by the teacher depending on the specic strategies considered. 2. The teacher orchestrated a classroom discussion on the different strategies which were collectively compared and possibly validated. The teachers interactions with the students, while they were involved in the activities, were crucial for stimulating the discussions among members of pairs, for stimulating verbalisation of strategies, and for discussing the validation of the developed strategies. As much crucial was the teachers role in orchestrating the classroom discussions (which we could instantiate only in class B) which led to an explicit, shared and de-contextualised formulation of strategies and to their validation. As highlighted by this discussion, a lot of attention was put on mathematical practices such as that of formalising and validating solution strategies for given problems (concern E), but also on how to foster such practices (concern C) and on how the computer could support the teacher in fostering such practices (concern TS). Finally also at this stage the experimenting team shows particular attention to concerns related to social construction of knowledge (S).

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7.6 Conclusion The above synthesis highlights a number of concerns which drove the design and the analysis of the experimentation, as they were made explicit through the reective interview. As well as for the DIDIREM case, many of these concerns can be put clearly in relationships with the theoretical frames inspiring the design of the experiment and framing its analysis. But, it has also been stressed that some concerns were not rationalised or operationalized through the reference to specic theoretical frameworks. With this respect, the researcher personal (implicit) knowledge, values, usual habits and experience played a crucial role. In addition, a posteriori one can observe that the priority given to the different concerns changed according to the different phases of the process of design-implementation-analysis of the experimentation. For instance, concern TS remained peripheral during the design phase and during the experiment. On the contrary, when the team attempted to formalise the adopted didactical functionality of Aplusix in order to make it somehow re-usable, the TS concern became central in terms of investigating how the tool could support the teacher in fostering the practice of formalising and validating strategies of problem solving.

8 Synthesis So far we discussed the two TELMA experiments in isolation, focusing on the functioning and potentialities of Didactical Functionality and Concerns Methodological Tool as means for understanding in each particular case the links between the theoretical frames used, the design of the experiment, its implementation and a posteriori analysis. In this synthesis we consider these experiments in the frame of the cross-experimentation, and outline the most signicant elements emerging from their compared analysis, regarding the Concerns Methodological Tool, the role of theories and the relationships between theories and concerns. The second case study conrms the evidence provided by the rst one that key concerns drive the whole experimentation process; and also that they drive it in a way whose coherence becomes understandable when one takes into consideration the main theoretical frames supporting the work, the methodological and conceptual tools these theoretical frames provide, and also the system of values they more or less explicitly convey. The second case study also conrms that the distribution of priority in concerns vary from the design of the experiment to its implementation and then to its a posteriori analysis, and it allows us to understand the reasons for such variation. Finally the second case study conrms that, while playing an important role, theoretical frames and concerns only shape the design to a limited extent. Many design decisions taken a priori or rening the design in itinere are not under theoretical control. The two case studies, thus, in spite of the evident differences, give us a coherent view of the way theoretical frames and concerns can interact for inuencing the educational use of ILEs, and it is worth noticing that the same regularities have been observed in the other experiments carried out by the TELMA teams. But these two case studies also make us aware of the existing differences between the respective coherence of the DIDIREM and ITD experimentations. In particular the analysis of the reective interviews revealed that each group was more sensitive to some concerns rather then others, as illustrated by the table below.

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Tool analysis DIDIREM ITD TE, ISK, ICD IMO, AMO, ISK

Educational goals E, I C

Modalities of use CO, TA, IG, ID, SO TA, TF, SO, ID

Only 4 of the 14 identied key concerns are shared: one (interaction between students and mathematics knowledge) for tool analysis, and three (tasks proposed, social organization and interaction between actors, institutional distance) for modalities of use. These differences impact the design in a non trivial way. For instance, ICD concern (institutional and cultural distance) plays an important role in DIDIREM design. For addressing this concern, the DIDIREM researchers rely on theoretical constructs provided by the Anthropological Theory of Didactics for which institutions are primary objects. They also rely on the notion of instrumental distance introduced by Haspekian (2005) within the frame of instrumental approach, and developed further in this special issue by Mariotti and Morgan. The accessibility of such conceptual tools contributes to make this concern inuence the design. The situation is not the same for ITD researchers. As explained above, their sensitivity to institutional constraints is not under the control of theoretical tools. For that reason, it cannot impact the design in the same way and does not. Moreover, it is worth noticing that contextual characteristics play here an important role. Globally the crossexperimentation shows that institutional constraints are much stronger in France than in Italy or Greece, thus what we observe in fact is a ternary interaction between key concerns, theoretical frames and contexts. This aspect is further developed in the article by Kynigos in this special issue. The sensitivity that ITD researchers have developed for semiotic mediation functions in the converse way. The conceptual tools provided by Activity Theory and the Theory of Semiotic Mediation strongly inuence their concern priority and the way their key concerns are addressed. The importance given in the analysis of Aplusix to its semiotic characteristics, and in the design to the organization of collective discussions orchestrated by the teacher is directly fed by these conceptual tools, much more elaborated than those at the disposal of the DIDIREM group. Moreover, even for the concerns which are shared, the analysis developed shows that they are not necessarily addressed in the same way. Regarding the ISK concern for instance, DIDIREM researchers seem to be especially sensitive to the analysis of the potential offered by Ari-Lab for allowing students to progressively develop solving strategies through autonomous interaction with the microworlds selected (a-didactic potential), while ITD refers also to ISK when evoking the important role given to classroom discussions orchestrated by the teachers and researchers, and aimed at making pupils personal strategies and meanings evolve towards shared mathematical meanings. Thus, even if the two groups pay specic attention for instance to the feedback provided by the ILEs they consider, they do not draw the same consequences of their analysis of these feedback in terms of design. Similar comments could be made about the way the task and social organizations (TA and SO shared concerns) are managed. Looking back at the analysis provided in the two case studies, it is easy once more to relate these differences to the respective theoretical backgrounds of the DIDIREM and ITD groups of researchers. How to approach theoretical fragmentation in the light of these results, and what advances have been reached? These are the issues we discuss in the last section of this article.

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9 Discussion and Perspectives TELMA teams have tried to address the issue of theoretical fragmentation from an operational perspective through the design and development of cross-experiments, through the elaboration and use of constructs such as the notion of didactical functionality and of key concern. What advances result from this enterprise? In our opinion, these advances are of different nature, both methodological and conceptual. Regarding the methodological dimension, there is no doubt that the methodology of cross-experimentation which has been developed has proved to be effective. The reection carried out in TELMA shows that different factors contributed to its effectiveness: the perturbation created by the requirement of experimenting an ILE developed in another educational culture of course, the precise guidelines established for this experimentation, the questionnaires obliging the participants to articulate their choices, the systematic exchanges and discussions, and the reective interviews. Thanks to these methodological choices, what remains often implicit in the literature and in research practices has been made explicit. We agree that the effort of making explicit the implicit factors when designing teaching experiments is not original per se. However, when a researcher autonomously faces this task, s/he generally deals with her/his own concerns, addresses self-posed questions. On the contrary, the reection brought forward during the TELMA cross-experimentation required researchers to address also questions/issues raised and formulated by other researchers. As a consequence, each researcher was asked to cope with theoretical frameworks and with approaches to research that were not familiar to him(her) and could even be not compatible with her/his own. TELMA researchers share the common feeling that, though highly demanding, these methodological requests resulted in a very useful effort both in terms of rening each teams reection concerning ILEs and mathematics education, and in terms of making a productive comparison possible. From both a methodological and conceptual points of view, another advance results from the notions of didactical functionality and key concern introduced for sharing a common language. As we have tried to show, these notions have allowed us to better understand and express the role that the theoretical frames on which we, respectively rely play in the design and use of ILEs by coming back to the needs they try to respond to. They have efciently supported the comparison of our respective positions, the identication of differences and complementarities between these. These methodological and conceptual tools have been used in TELMA in a specic area, that of mathematical learning with digital media, but they are certainly of more general value. In our opinion, there is no by chance that we observe that close strategies begin to develop in other instances as attested for instance by the last European Conferences for Research in Mathematics Education or special issues of journals such as the volume 40.2 of the Zentralblatt fur Didaktik der Mathematik published in 2008. Beyond this methodological and conceptual dimension, the cross-experimentation has produced signicant insights on how theoretical frameworks inuence the way researchers think the educational use of technology, by inuencing the tool analysis, the identication of educational goals and the elaboration of modalities of use. These insights help us to understand better what is needed, what can be aimed at in terms of theoretical integration, and how it could be achieved (see Artigue (2007) and Cerulli et al. (2008) for further details on such results). The results obtained reinforce our conviction that integration cannot mean the building of a unied theory encompassing the main theories used in different cultures. This is especially evident if one adopts a design perspective as was the case in the cross-experimentation. Cross-experimentation analyses make clear that,

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according to the theoretical frames involved, designs obey different logics which are partly incommensurable. They also show that the economical and coherence needs of design are different from those of a posteriori analysis. Incorporating too many different theoretical frames can make coherent design quite impossible, but in a posteriori analysis introducing new theoretical frames or constructs for instance for explaining unexpected events, for producing alternative explanations, is easier and can be an effective support towards theoretical connection. For instance, it looks clear that what the Theory of Didactic Situation and the Theory of Semiotic Mediation try to control and anticipate in the design of a situation is quite different and that each vision leads the design in a different direction. But discussions and exchanges in the a posteriori analysis phase of the cross-experimentation have evidenced that the tools of one approach could enrich the a posteriori analysis of the other one, and that the systematic search for such enrichment could be a good strategy for establishing productive connections and complementarities between these theoretical frames. In the last years, TELMA teams have engaged in another European project in continuity with TELMA work: the ReMath project (Representing Mathematics with Digital Media).9 In this project, the collaborative work has included new dimensions: the development of ILEs, of a common language for scenarios, and of an integrative platform MathDils. Moreover each team has experimented both its own ILE and an alien ILE in more realistic contexts, and over longer periods of time than in the TELMA cross-experiments. In ReMath, the methodological and conceptual tools presented in this article have been systematically used and further developed, not only to foster communication per se but to achieve specic common research goals. As had been the case in TELMA, the results obtained have been interesting and substantial. What remains nevertheless an open problem is the way we can make the knowledge we have built and the mutual understanding we have achieved easily accessible to researchers who do not share a similar experience.

References
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