In this talk, we will discuss three main issues: (a) the importance of ICT in the Portuguese Education System (PES), including new national initiatives and their impact in the New Curriculum for the Portuguese Basic Education; (b) the initiatives EECM, PmatE, TextMat, and IntBooks; and (c) our point of view regarding the current PES, the TERC reform in the US, and how the AA model may help to clarify some questions in Education.

Recently, the Portuguese State started several initiatives that in the whole aim to give “One Computer to Each Student”. This includes children in Primary Schools, where the Portuguese made computer “Magalhães” is being distributed. An outstanding idea that still misses several important issues in the educational scenario. Teachers are now less reluctant in using technology, but still do not used it conveniently, e.g., although widely spread among Basic and Secondary Schools, e-learning systems are not properly used. It is clear that, in the future, the teaching tools will change and push an increasing demand of good digital tools and quality content, which is now lacking behind. In fact, the New Curriculum for the Portuguese Basic Education (NCPBE) has already considered such changes.
As stated in the NCPBE, the learning goals in Mathematics involve the knowledge of mathematical concepts, mathematical representation, connection between distinct concepts, mastering procedures, problem solving, reasoning and communication. The use of technology (computers and calculators) is one of the resources recommended mainly in investigational tasks as, for instance, in the exploration of geometrical and numerical patterns. The NCPBE gives special emphasis to Euclidean transformations (isometries and similarities) and the use of dynamic geometrical software (Geogebra, Cabri, Geometer's Sketchpad) is highly recommended since, as it is well established, it enriches the knowledge of geometry. Through the three cycles of Basic Education the students must use calculators and computers to perform difficult calculations, representing information and geometrical objects. They should take advantage of the possibilities of experiencing a hand full of cases in real time. It is a real resource power in domains like geometry, algebra and data analysis.

There are several academic and private initiatives following such guidelines. Here we will describe, and exemplify with living examples, the initiatives EECM, PmatE, TexMat, and IntBooks of the University of Aveiro. The EECM initiative, based on the Russian model of the St. Petersburg school for young education, aims to develop mathematical qualities in children (from 4 years old) to students of all grades of the compulsory school. They run several events, e.g., involving parents in the process of how to teach “advanced” concepts to children, summer schools, and other events at local schools.

Since 1990, PmatE has been developing a platform only available in the Internet that develops contents either in the way of competition (e.g., Equamat’2008 which involved 4.000 students from 160 schools), or in the formative mode (evaluation, diagnosis and practice). PmatE has currently three main pillars: the communication and diffusion of science; school intervention; and cooperation with countries who share the same Official Language – the Portuguese (e.g., Mozambique). The platform is mainly based on an innovative system of questions randomly generated by models that has been used, not only as aforementioned, but also as complementary material in college courses in areas ranging from Mathematics, Biology, Physics and Portuguese Language.

The TexMat initiative has developed a highly interactive digital book covering the new curricula in mathematics for the 5th and 6th grades of the Portuguese Education System. Its design includes several features and capabilities as multilingual, modularity, the ability of been easily extendable by teachers (e.g., adding Geogebra constructions), model generated exercises, open questions, and centralized gathering of students statistics and assessments.

The IntBooks initiative aims to develop a platform to improve and make much easier the production of interactive digital content from any text editor. It addresses some of the common technical issues as: (a) how should mathematics be delivered and displayed in a large set of devices (PCs, PDAs, etc.); (b) how users interaction should be made and statistics collected; and (c) how authors may reuse and mesh up content from different web repositories.

Finally, and depending on time, we will discuss our point of view concerning some general issues of education, connected with the current Portuguese Education System and the TERC reform in the US. In particular, we will present the Abstract Abilities model (AA model) and how we believe it may improve Education.