ZDM Mathematics Education (2009) 41:505–519
DOI 10.1007/s11858-009-0200-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Co-action with digital technologies
Luis Moreno-Armella Æ Stephen J. Hegedus
Accepted: 5 July 2009 / Published online: 1 August 2009

FIZ Karlsruhe 2009
Abstract Circa1895, James M. Baldwin introduced a
powerful view regarding Darwinian Evolution. Baldwin
suggested that behavioral flexibility could play a role in
amplifying natural selection because this ability enables
individuals to modify the environment of natural selection
affecting the fate of future generations. In this view,
behavior can affect evolution but, and this is crucial,
without claiming that responses to environmental demands
acquired during one’s lifetime could be passed directly to
one’s offspring. In the present paper, we want to use this
view as a guiding metaphor to cast light on understanding
how students and teachers can utilize the environment of
digital technologies to scaffold their activities. We present
examples of activities from geometry and algebra in high
school settings that illustrate the potential role that certain
technologies can have in transforming classroom interac-
tion and work.
This work is based upon work supported by the National Science
Foundation under grant REC-0337710 and the Institute of Education
Sciences at the US Department of Education under grant
R305B070430. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or
recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the views of these agencies.
L. Moreno-Armella
Cinvestav - IPN, Mexico City, Mexico
L. Moreno-Armella
S. J. Hegedus (&)
James J Kaput Center for Research and Innovation
in Mathematics Education, University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth, 200 Mill Road, Suite 150B, Fairhaven,
MA 02719, USA
e-mail: shegedus@umassd.edu
Keywords Baldwin effect
Classroom connectivity

Culture
Dynamic geometry
Environment
SimCalc
1 Introduction
In this paper, we draw on Baldwin’s intellectual frame-
work to suggest a model for discussing the present use of
digital technologies in classrooms today. We begin by
outlining the idea we have called Baldwin’s cultural effect
that describes how human activity within a culture intro-
duces qualitative modifications of the environment due to
the presence of new artifacts (including, but not limited
to material tools). We use this as a guiding metaphor to
develop our suggested model to explore and learn within
dynamic technology-enhanced learning environments—for
instance, Dynamic Geometry and SimCalc MathWorlds.
We build upon prior work (Moreno-Armella et al., 2008)
to extend the concept of co-action, which describes how
the user of a dynamic environment guides the actions upon
the environment and is guided by the environment as a
fluid activity. We describe how Baldwin’s cultural effect
has evolved in human activity from mimetic to oral cul-
ture, a world of narratives and myths that transforms
people and their environments. Such perspectives can
guide us to understand how digital technologies can be
effectively integrated into mainstream education as well as
how to transform communication in the mathematics
classroom. We illustrate our theoretical perspectives with
some examples of activities we have used in our class-
rooms and vignettes from larger-scale studies. These
activities, model how the Baldwin cultural effect, as an
organizing principle, is embedded within dynamic digital
media.
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2 The Baldwin effect: a guiding metaphor
2.1 Overview
At the turn of the nineteenth century, James M. Baldwin
(1861–1934) wrote that if a species could behave in such
a way that the environment is modified in a stable way,
then future generations of that species can see their fate
affected. It is possible then, that the activities of a species
might affect its own future evolution because a perma-
nently altered environment could cast new selection
pressures on the newer generations of that species. The
Baldwin effect was explained in the paper: A New Factor
in Evolution (Baldwin, 1896, pp. 537). The new factor,
mentioned in this title, was behavior. This was a subtle
modification to Darwin’s Principle of Natural Selection
which entails that the environment is continually working
as an obstacle to the presence of a species in the world
and the species will or will not be able to overcome that
pressure according to its genotype. A basic idea under-
lying this thesis is that the organism and the environment
are mutually defined. For Baldwin, the species could alter
the rules of the game by introducing stable and permanent
changes into the environment. The Baldwin effect made
visible a path to connect development with evolution
within a common framework but (and this is a big but)
through a connection that does not commit Lamarck’s
mistake—Lamarck maintained that inheritance of
acquired characters is the mechanism by which changes
undergone over the life of an organism are transmitted to
their offspring. In contrast, Darwin upheld the thesis that
a species evolves according to the Principle of Natural
Selection. If the environment is suddenly and permanently
modified, as explained by Baldwin, it could be that a
particular species loses, ineluctably, the capacity to sur-
vive in the new environment. Baldwin’s suggestion was
that through behavior, a species could impact the envi-
ronment on a permanent basis, in such a way that it
would be beneficial or detrimental to the fate of the
species.
These reflections were not an isolated outcome in
Baldwin’s rich intellectual life. He was a psychologist
interested in problems of social heredity who explained
that in a child’s personal development ‘‘his entire learning
is a process of conforming to social patterns’’ (see Hoff-
meyer & Krull, 2003, p. 253). Baldwin was trying to
establish connections between the realm of the organic and
the social environment along child development. We wish
to reiterate that, for us, development is different from
evolution; however, both use time as an organizing prin-
ciple. Cognition unfolds both at an evolutionary and at a
developmental scale. Although occurring at different
scales, these processes are not totally divorced. What
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happens when the environment is a social environment and
the organism is a child?
In a text from 1913 (cited by Hoffmeyer & Krull, p.
258), Baldwin wrote:
The society into which the child is born is not to be
conceived as a loose aggregate, made up of a number
of biological individuals. It is rather, a body of mental
products, an established network of psychical rela-
tionships…it is literally a tissue…in the development
of which the new individual is differentiated. He does
not enter it as an individual…he is only an individual
when he comes out of it.
This description of how an individual comes out of the
social tissue is reminiscent of Vygotsky’s General Genetic
Law of Cultural Development (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 106)
which says:
Every function in the cultural development of the
child appears twice, in two planes, first, the social,
then the psychological, first between people as an
intermental category, then within the child as an
intramental category. This pertains equally to vol-
untary attention, to logical memory, to the formation
of concepts, and to the development of the will.
Vygotsky makes explicit the encounter of culture and
cognition by describing how the child’s development can
be explained as a socially emergent process. The former
ideas about the mutual determination of organism and the
environment have been re-described as ideas about society
and learning.
Baldwin did not conceive of the social determination of
the person as a passive process. The person, he wrote,
‘‘exercises his private judgment, fights his own battles for
truth’’ (see Valsiner & van der Veer, 2005, p. 85–86) as the
result of a selective control of his social environment.
The present environmental crisis sends a message,
hopefully not written in the sand, that speaks about the
perils of irresponsible human activity when the latter does
not take into account the inextricable relationships (phys-
ical and cultural) between the organism and the environ-
ment. On the same line, the present educational crisis is
sending us a complementary message. The educational
systems are not providing the adequate tools for the stu-
dents and teachers to transform their educational environ-
ments and, consequently, their fate.
2.2 Historical perspectives
Two million years ago, our ancestor, Homo Erectus, was
using stone tools to modify the surrounding environment to
his advantage. Homo Erectus used and designed these tools
as well. The mediated activity with these tools started to
Co-action with digital technologies
modify his own future as a species because his explorations
initiated the construction of a new niche that eventually
softened the environmental pressures on him. Natural
selection was operating now within an increasingly modi-
fied environment (re-created as a cultural environment). An
interactive dynamic involving individuals and their envi-
ronment was in motion. From then on, the evolutionary
path of hominids took a Baldwinian route. Why was the
Homo Erectus able to initiate this process? Brain devel-
opment eventually granted him an enhanced memory sys-
tem and conscious control over the movement of his body
(Donald, 2001, p. 263). Let us call attention on this:
Conscious control over the body movements is the neces-
sary condition to transform this control into a communi-
cation strategy. That is what our ancestors did to escape
from the prison of their own ‘‘autistic body’’ and com-
municate the impressions of experiences and feelings to
others. Mimesis introduced structure to this communication
of experiences. Conscious control of body movements
allows anyone to re-enact intentional movements and so, to
enhance and develop them. Mimesis serves a didactic
purpose as well: to teach the construction of tools. This
teaching enables a learner to build another copy of the
same tool. This means that the same tool is not a particular
exemplar by itself but it is, in fact, the idea and the algo-
rithm to build it. The idea embodies the intentionality of
the builder. Both the wish and the need for building a stone
tool, reflects intentionality and a projective mentality as
well. Stone tools were not just amplifiers of physical
activity; more importantly, those tools were crystallizations
of intentional actions whose goal was to transform the
environment.
The activity of the Erectus began to fuse the material
world where the tool was used (the space of intervention of
the tools), with the social, cultural, world that provides the
meanings for that tool (the space of ideation). The creative
convergence of biology with culture prompted Dobzhansky
(see Cole, 1996, p. 165) to write that it goes nowhere to try
to explain human biology by disregarding culture. The
dynamic niche created by our ancestors, wherein tools and
emerging social behavior were instrumental, did not pro-
duce a finished version of Homo sapiens. The dynamics
consisted of a mutual and continuing definition of species
Homo and a new, enriched, environment. Tools began their
evolution as simple stones; a means of mediation to reach a
goal like uprooting plants. A change in an evolutionary
trajectory occurred when the new tools incorporated pur-
poseful design, like in the case of the biface ax created by
Homo Erectus.
Our ancestors were not waiting passively to be defined
by the environment. Rather, they were using the environ-
ment to scaffold their activities, for instance, using stones
for tools and taking profit of the scenario for group
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hunting. Cognition could not be defined anymore (if ever)
as an implicit understanding of the world (in the sense,
birds know how to build their nests) devoid of explicit
representations. A stone tool is a material representation
wherein is embodied the algorithm to design the tool and
the purposes that motivated its construction; a plan for
hunting big game is also a representation, this time of goals
and how to meet them. Here, we can see an example of
distributed cognition (extra-somatic distribution of cogni-
tion) at work and how this was a selective advantage.
While we try to solve a problem working with another
person, we share and distribute cognitive responsibilities at
the same time. Cognition is distributed within a social
space (Hutchins, 1996); it goes beyond the skin. G. Bateson
(1972, p. 459) provided a famous example that illustrates
nicely what distributed cognition means:
Suppose I am a blind man, and I use a stick. I go tap,
tap, tap. Where do I start? Is my mental system
bounded at the hand of the stick? Is it bounded by my
skin?
Over two million years were necessary to arrive at the
present state of the evolution of man. Cultural accumula-
tion was a slow process at the beginning, but afterwards it
gained momentum as the fusion of culture and biology was
taking place and new Baldwinian strategies were devel-
oping inside the communities. Mimesis, as a cultural gain,
helped to consolidate the integration of organism and social
environment. Later, the acquisition of orality and its
powerful blending with mimesis was instrumental to pro-
duce Homo sapiens and then Homo sapiens sapiens, thus
entering the final phases of the phylogenetic history of
man. Let us recall that Erectus lasted until about
300,000 years ago and then came a transition period until
about 50,000 years ago (Donald, 1993, pp. 202–203).
Modern humans appeared within the last 50,000 years.
Geertz (1973, pp. 47–48) nicely described the new evolu-
tionary dynamic—that closely coincides with the Baldwin
cultural effect—when he wrote:
Culture, rather than being added to a finished or
virtually finished animal, was centrally ingredient in
the production of that animal itself. The slow growth
of culture through the Ice Age altered the balance of
selection pressures for the evolving Homo in such a
way as to play a major directive role in his evolu-
tion…As culture […] accumulated and developed, a
selective advantage was given to those individuals in
the population most able to take advantage of it—the
effective hunter, the persistent gatherer, the adept
toolmaker, the resourceful leader.
The new capacity for narrative (storytelling) enriched
the human world; it was possible to fix the origin of the
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material world or the origin of a community (the con-
struction of an identity) with a certain level of objectivity.
Once one has an object, an object of speech this time, it is
possible to modify it, adapt it to different contexts, and so
on. The new object possesses plasticity and malleability.
As Donald (op.cit., p. 211) says, words allow the sharing of
highly specific information, the rapid collection of new
knowledge and the regulation of all aspects of behaviour.
We can call narrative a perfect outcome of Baldwin’s
cultural effect.
3 Symbolic thinking
3.1 Looking through
The preceding section describes how the phylogenetic and
cultural lines of development of Homo were—from early
times—inextricably fused, each being a supplement to the
other. Our ancestors were interacting with the environment
(physical and increasingly cultural) in a tool-mediated
manner. The appearance of speech enabled them to
develop narrative as a new kind of mediation tool that
triggered the development of new forms of social organi-
zations that were not possible from Mimetic culture.
Reflecting along these lines, one might be tempted to think
that cultural development gained momentum and was able
to overcome the biological constraints of the human
organism. However, the matter is quite delicate. Barbara
Rogoff (1990, p. 28) has written some cautionary words in
this respect: Biology and culture are not alternative influ-
ences but inseparable aspects of a system within which
individuals develop.
Now, let us reflect on some aspects of symbolic think-
ing. When we compute the multiplication of two natural
numbers, our cognitive activity is mediated by the posi-
tional system of numbers. We find it very natural to
compute with numbers as if the notation system was
invisible. Today, the positional symbolic system, in base
10, has been transformed from a cultural tool into a cog-
nitive tool. This is easily seen when we try to compute
using numbers written in base 7, for instance. We feel how
unnatural and remote it is to think to operate this way. Base
7 is a cultural tool that has not yet been transformed into a
cognitive tool. Becoming a cognitive tool entails that the
tool (material or symbolic) becomes invisible while we use
it.
We say we think with a semiotic system, when we use it
as a cultural tool, like in the example of numbers written in
base 7. And we say we think through the semiotic system
when we use it as a cognitive tool, as an experienced reader
understands what it means to read ‘‘through the text.’’ This
happens when the semiotic system becomes invisible for
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the user. There are some risks that arise from this deep
familiarity with the workings of a mathematical semiotic
system. The sense of objectivity of the mathematical
objects one feels after a long time working with them could
make us believe in the pre-semiotic existence of those
objects, that is, in a Platonic existence of mathematical
objects. We cannot refrain from illustrating this situation
with the feelings of H. Hertz when referring to Maxwell’s
equations pertaining to the theory of electromagnetism (see
Kline, 1980, p. 338):
One cannot escape the feeling that these mathemati-
cal formulas have an independent existence and
intelligence of their own, […] that we get more out of
them than was originally put into them.
This analysis is our entry point for the development of a
digital strategy informing mathematics education in the
twenty-first century. With dynamic, interactive technolo-
gies, we transform the nature of the semiotic system and by
allowing learners to see through the abstract-symbolic and
make visible the underlying mathematical infrastructure—
we allow them to see the knowledge embedded in the
symbols.
Ernest Mach expressed his similar views (cited by Kline,
1962, p. 542) with these words: ‘‘It must sometimes seem
to the mathematician that it is not he but his pencil and
paper which are the real possessors of intelligence.’’ The
pencil, for Mach, is not the wooden object but the mediated
act of writing. Vygotsky considered this view—cultural
tools becoming cognitive tools—as central to his frame-
work of ideas, and discussed it many times. For instance,
he said that (cited by Wertsch, 1985, p. 62): ‘‘Any higher
mental function is external because it was social at some
point before becoming an internal, truly mental function.’’
We can illustrate this further, by mentioning the ample
and diverse set of external supports of memory. What we
have today was originated over 30,000 years ago when the
first external supports for memory were devised. Incised
bones like the one found in Moravia (Moreno-Armella
et al., 2008, p. 101), dated 30,000 BC., constitute an external
support for memory. We may interpret this finding as an
example of the use of a one-to-one correspondence
between a concrete collection of objects (perhaps preys
attributed to a hunter) and the set of incisions that had a
symbolic meaning for the hunter. Also, we may see the act
of incising a bone as an intentional act of modifying the
bone to store, manipulate, and transport information. The
incision takes the place of the hunted animal, entailing
the production of a new version of reality—in a sense, it
refracts reality. This simple counting activity is external
and social as well. The symbols signify something for the
interpreter (in this example, the hunter). Again, defining the
symbolic realm entails the creation of a new environment,
Co-action with digital technologies
the territory of the symbol that is mutually defined with the
interpreter. We cannot separate the symbol and the inter-
preter. In the case of incisions, we have an instance of the
production of symbols in a stable, permanent, manner. It
needs an external support that in the present case is the
bone. An external and stable support for writing symbols
on it has been, historically, a device that begins working as
an extension of the biological memory, and is gradually
incorporated into the functional architecture of cognition.
External, stable symbols enabled early sapiens to transcend
biological memory and transform it into a distributed
memory within a community. With time, as part of a
Baldwinian iterative process, humans produced more
powerful examples of these external supports for memory
and cognition.
The history of tokens, in Mesopotamia, is another
important example related to the production of mathe-
matical symbols. As D. Schmandt-Besserat has written in
her important account on how writing came about
(Schmandt-Besserat, 1996, p. 1) tokens were small clay
counters of many shapes, which served for counting and
trade. Research in the last decades has made tangible that
tokens served the needs of economy and were tied to the
rise of social structures (Schmandt-Besserat, Ibid, p. 7). As
trade became more complex, the counters that represented
different amounts and sorts of commodities—according to
shape, size, and number—were collected inside sealed
envelopes to preserve the integrity of the list of commod-
ities in a commercial operation. However, as this action hid
the enclosed counters, Schmandt-Besserat recounts (Ibid,
p. 7) that these counters were imprinted before, on the outer
surface of the envelope. The impressed marks on the sur-
face kept an indexical relation (Deacon, 1997, pp. 70–71)
with the counters inside as their referents. The counters
inside the envelope had a conventional meaning with
respect to amounts and commodities. After a while, it
became evident that the counters inside were redundant;
impressing them on the outside of the envelope and more
importantly, transferring their conventional meaning to the
external inscriptions, was enough to convey the informa-
tion intended. That decision altered the semiotic status of
those external inscriptions; they became symbols (Deacon,
Ibid, pp. 70–71). Afterwards, scribes began to draw on the
clay the shapes of former counters. This gradual, emerging
set of physical inscriptions (pictograms and ideograms)
became instances of environmental inputs enabling the
generation of both, mental (interpretive actions) and
physical (elaborations)—on the new inscriptions.
As Duval (2006, p. 107) has suggested, the study of the
history of mathematics reveals the importance of the
mathematical notation systems (semiotic representations)
among other things because in the history we can learn how
our precursors computed with early notations. Frequently,
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when we use modern notation applied to early mathemat-
ical problems, we discover that those problems become
apparently trivial. Were they trivial? No. This cast light on
the fact that mathematical notation is not epistemologically
neutral, that it carries with it knowledge and wisdom from
precursors. Mathematical symbols co-evolve with their
mathematical referents and the induced semiotic objectiv-
ity makes possible for them to be taken as shared in a
community of practice.
We will argue that with the new advances in design of
dynamic media, the accessibility of mathematical ideas and
the nature of symbolization are transformed with the cre-
ation of new forms of symbol-mediated experience.
3.2 Tools as artifacts
A tool is not the physical object itself; rather, the physical
object is the embodiment of purpose and design. It is like a
phenotype, a material realization of an idea. A tool cannot
be separated from an activity. If the activity is changed, the
purpose is changed and this entails the re-definition of the
tool as such. Tool and activity are mutually defined.
What began as a prosthetic device to make possible
physical activities of the body (cutting, uprooting, break-
ing, etc.) eventually transformed the environment and set
the scene for future interactions between future bodies and
future environments. Beyond directly modifying the
physical scenario, tool activity was acting ‘‘behind
the curtains’’ to transform the worldview of those using the
tools. Human activity has been saturating the environment
and the development of this environment, increasingly
reflecting the nature of human activities. That is why an
activity can become an input for the next human move. The
actor and the activity (the agent and the tool) have been
fused in a dialectical dance. On the other hand, the
appearance of tools embedded in the environment, like
agriculture, attests to the humanization of the environment.
Today, when we are flying and we look down from the
plane window, we can see a city, the labors of farming, a
highway, a bridge, and so on. We see a world saturated by
human activity, a mirror of ourselves, we can say. So, we
produce tools and we find them in the environment as well,
being products of previous human activities. This is
important and suggests that we should try to establish a
classification of tools due to the rich diversity of their
effects on us and on the human environment. Earlier, we
talked about the physical tool as a phenotype of the tool
previously imagined and that existed as an ideal model.
This immaterial version—correspondingly, the genotype—
lives in the territory of the tool as a field of forces that gives
structure to purpose and design in order to reach intended
goals with the mediation of the tool. Of course, those
purposes and intended goals are formed according to
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cultural values; it is from culture that they take their
meaning. For instance, what an object represents for a
person is not something that is intrinsic to the object but,
rather, something that is formed from the role that object
has in the cultural network. Thinking in tools that can
modify our cognition and worldview, we come with works
of art, scientific theories, new ethical perspectives, etc. We
have gone a long way from the simplest stone tool to works
of art that transform the worldview of a community. We
have levels of tools, from physical embodiments of an
imagined tool to soft tools like a scientific theory, a novel
and a work of art. Following Wartofsky (1979, pp. 189–
202), we can call these tools, respectively, primary artifacts
(the physical embodiment); secondary artifacts (the ideal
tool we have described before, the skills one develops by
using a primary tool), and finally, tertiary artifacts, those
like a scientific theory, a novel, that create new world-
views. If we adopt this view on human cultural artifacts,
then, the main function of cultural activity is to arrive at the
production of tertiary artifacts. This can be thought as the
highest outcome of the Baldwin cultural effect.
4 Baldwinian perspectives on mathematical activities
using ‘‘dynamic technology’’: enhanced learning
environments
We can transform a Euclidean object into an analytic
object pertaining to Cartesian geometry. The outcome of
this transformation is a new mathematical object and
simultaneously, it is the same object. This is not a con-
tradiction. Let us explain. From a strictly formal mathe-
matical point of view, we have just changed the semiotic
representation of the object. There are examples aplenty in
mathematics: changing the variable of integration trans-
forms a difficult problem into a simpler one; changing the
base of a vector space enables us to find the Jordan
canonical form corresponding to a linear transformation,
and so on. Thus, the ability to change the semiotic repre-
sentation of a mathematical object opens a door to under-
standing and solving hard problems. Now, if we consider
learning, the kind of learning that takes place in the
classroom for instance, we arrive at a different conclusion.
Two different semiotic representations of the ‘‘same’’
mathematical object can be seen as corresponding to dif-
ferent mathematical objects. Then, the final, official, ver-
sion of the object is not yet final. It is always an object
under construction. Each semiotic representation is a
means to add a new face to the ‘‘never-ending polyhedron’’
that constitutes the evolving mathematical object. The level
of objectivity increases as we aggregate new semiotic
representations. Thus, the complexity of the mathematical
object can be seen from two different points of view: the
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strictly mathematical and the cognitive-cultural dimension.
Duval’s work (2006) is a deep study of this problem.
Now, let us consider what we call border objects which
are essential for co-action to occur. They are digital-
dynamic embodiments of mathematical objects that are
defined initially within a paper-and-pencil environment and
that can be meaningfully explored within the new envi-
ronment. This kind of embodiment is not the same as a
change of semiotic representation within the same medium,
the static medium for instance. In fact, a semiotic digital
representation of a border object possesses a new quality
that is not present in paper-and-pencil semiotic represen-
tations: the executability of the representation.
This quality transforms the kind of interaction that a
student can have with the mathematics, now embedded in
the digital medium. For instance, when the student finds a
familiar object, a triangle let us say, and she drags a vertex,
the medium re-acts to her action producing a new triangle
—revealing the plasticity of the object as it does not lose its
identity as a triangle. This behavior is enabled by the ex-
ecutability of the digital representation of the border object.
Perhaps this re-action stimulates a new action from the
hands of the student. The student and the medium re-act to
each other and the iteration of this process is what we call
co-action between the student and the medium. The border
object possesses some points, like the vertex, that are in-
frastructural. These points are called hot spots. It is the
existence of ‘‘hot-spots’’ in the object that create the
dynamic for co-action. These hot-spots are points that can
be used to construct mathematical figures, e.g., join two
points with a segment, or construct a piecewise graph, and
then used to dynamically change the construction, as in the
case of dragging the vertex of a triangle. Let us underline
that in digital media as Dynamic GeometryTM environ-
ments (e.g. Cabri II? or Geometer’s Sketchpad) or
SimCalc MathWorlds, hot-spots are key infrastructural
pieces. For the purposes of this paper, we consider digital
media as dynamic geometry software (DGS) and SimCalc
MathWorlds (‘‘SimCalc’’) wherein hot-spots are key in-
frastructural pieces.
In this kind of digital, dynamic media the action is not
owned—in fact, agency is a collaboration between the user
and the environment, both are actors and re-actors. Both act
and re-act on each other. Basically, a co-action is always in
effect. Let us be clear. ‘‘Dragging’’ is a physical action
within a dynamic, interactive software environment. It is an
affordance of working in a stylus-based, interactive visual
environment. But it is co-action and executability which
are synergistic not co-action and dragging. It is the envi-
ronment (a mouse with hot-spots) that allows dragging. It is
co-action where the user can drive the dragging, and be
dragged-by, in a cognitive sense, the resultant forces of
such action upon the ‘‘rubbery’’ image that can potentially
Co-action with digital technologies
yield insight and understanding about the very construct
they are making or exploring. The resultant action by the
environment, subject to the user’s input, is a strong link to
understanding what the environment (constrained by a
figure in our examples below) can afford in terms of
meaning.
Now, when the students explore mathematics in a digital
medium, where hot spots are present and where mathe-
matics is embedded, they can experience mathematics
through a qualitatively different semiotic mediator—that
is, the new digital medium. The emergent knowledge from
this digital medium is different from the knowledge
emerging from a paper-and-pencil medium because
the mediator is not epistemologically neutral. That is, the
nature of the knowledge is inextricably linked to the
mediating artifact. This is where the border objects can
guide us in the design of new models to explore mathe-
matical thinking in classroom environments.
The notion of co-action stresses the importance of the
role of the environment in which the tool is being used and
the dialectic process is between the user, the tool and the
environment. Border objects are offered as Baldwinian
probes into a new cultural, mathematical territory. The
learning environment dynamically changes to be one where
we can stretch the limits of the tools or artifacts and hence
drive the Zone of Proximal Development of the Artifact
(ZPDA) itself through co-action. This is the Baldwinian
iterative process we call co-action. This is the place to take
into full account what we said at the beginning of our
paper: that we would be using Baldwinian ideas to build a
metaphor that suggests a model for discussing the present
use of digital technologies in classrooms today. This is not
a minor service as we are dealing with temporal evolution
at different scales: phylogenetic and the interplay between
sociogenetic and ontogenetic dimensions of cognition.
We offer now some models of mathematical activities,
exemplars, based on our experience in the classroom, and
designed while working with teachers. We use them to
illustrate the framework we have been developing in this
essay. We want to emphasize we are not presenting them as
mere examples, but as exemplars, that is, as models that
embody some central features of a co-active exploration.
Yet, we do not expect these to be accepted as proof of the
effectiveness of all dynamic environments, rather, a start-
ing point to begin to build methodological models to
explore such emerging phenomena in learning
environments.
The first two deal with geometrical problems involving
border objects and consequently (in the logic of our design)
look for an alternative solution taking into account the
previous work with geometric transformations in the digital
medium. They are offered as Baldwinian probes into a new
cultural, mathematical territory.
511
The second set is composed of two activities from uti-
lizing a representationally-rich software mathematical
environment with wireless connectivity and how these
activities are enacted in a classroom. The social fabric of
the classroom, or any learning setting for purposes of our
theory, constitutes other dimensions of co-action that under
the right kinds of circumstances both technologically and
pedagogically (which we expand on momentarily) create
rich forms of mathematical speech and mathematical social
dialogue. New forms of connectivity allow students and
teachers to use their surrounding environment to scaffold
their activities in a Baldwinian sense.
4.1 Dynamic geometry activities
Our first example deals with a geometrical problem
involving a border object and consequently (in the logic of
our design) looks for an alternative solution taking into
account the previous work with geometric transformations
in the digital medium.
Problem: Given a triangle ABC, how do we construct a
triangle DEF with least perimeter?
There are some geometrical actions supported by the
DGS. For example, reflection. Let us reflect the sides
(Fig. 1) DF and DE on the corresponding sides AC and BC
of the original. Then, we obtain Fig. 2.
In this figure, the broken line HFEG represents the
perimeter of the inscribed triangle DEF because the
reflections do not change the length of the segments DE
and DF. Reflecting on the meaning of the length of the said
broken line, the student-teachers came to the following
conclusion: The inscribed triangle DEF will have the least
perimeter when the associated line HFEG is a segment.
Figure 3 shows this last case that happens if D, E, and F are
the intersections of sides AB, BC, and AC with the per-
pendiculars drawn from C, A, and B respectively.
Dragging the hot-spots A, B, C, or moving D, E or F to
the bisected points (after constructing them—see dashed
C
E
F
A B
D
Fig. 1 Least perimeter
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512
C G
E
H Geometer’s Sketchpad) we can move the point P around
F the inner circle. The overall figure is rubbery as it stretches
A D B
Fig. 2 Reflections
Fig. 3 The solution
lines) in the digital dynamic environment shows the
robustness of the construction as well as the plasticity and
malleability made feasible by the environment. It is
important for the reader to explore the sketch in a native
DGS (see online for sketches) to experience the tension and
trial of discovery that can potentially lead to the illustration
in Fig. 3. The student/teacher, as the user, has the support
of rigorous scaffolding deep in the infrastructure that is
extremely difficult to replicate in static, inert media.
Mathematical constructions become more dynamic,
motion-based events, with explorations, conjectures, and
reasoning based around the aggregation of mathematical
objects and furthered by co-actions of students with a
dynamic environment. We conceive of the reflection tool
embedded in the environment, as opening an opportunity
for a new epistemology as the notion of proof itself can be
deeply transformed, again, through a substantially new
mediator.
We offer a second exemplar, which we often use in
graduate teacher education classes.
Problem: Two circles touch internally at M. A line
touches the inner circle at P and cuts the outer circle at Q
and R. Prove that angle QMP = angle RMP.
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L. Moreno-Armella, S. J. Hegedus
We can construct a diagram corresponding to this
problem on a piece of paper or in a dynamic geometry
environment (see Fig. 4).
In a dynamic geometry environment (here we are using
across the scope of all representations of the figure bound
by the constraints of the diagram. In a sense, a gestalt of the
mathematical structure, hitherto invisible. But it is that
action, and the observance of what is variant or invariant
under such inputs that create the co-action between learner
(searcher) and their environment. Knowledge is embedded
in the geometry environment. The user can search, find and
negotiate meaning through co-action. They cannot with
paper. In addition, while measurement could be annotated
on the diagram to observe similarity of angles this is not
invisible knowledge (since it is an annotation).
There is a built-in knowledge within the environment
(from the constructive power of the user, and the mathe-
matical accuracy of the programmer) that preserves rela-
tionships between the discovery trajectory of the user and
the rule-set of Euclidian geometry. Such a rule-set is pre-
served through a static parent–child relationship that is
executed through dragging a hot-spot. This knowledge is
embedded in the figure by being its structure. It is through
executability that the structure is released and exposed. It is
our proposition that executability preserves a signification-
link to the user or interrupter of the dynamic figure relea-
ses, or makes visible, or makes see-able for themselves,
attributes or relationships hitherto unknown to themselves.
This is the kernel of co-action.
Figure 5 illustrates how one can manipulate the figure
by making visible the knowledge of the structure that
provides the sufficient conditions for why this relationship
M
R
P
Q
Fig. 4 Circle construction
Co-action with digital technologies
of angles holds. Further co-action often yields more
information with our teachers. The quadrilateral PSMT is a
cyclic quadrilateral (opposite angles are supplementary).
And the diagonal ST is parallel to QR. This embedded
knowledge, illustrated by the interactive nature of the
dynamic geometry environment and co-action, can yield
the necessary information to prove the required equality.
The argument is based on the similarity and congruence of
several triangles in the figure.
The net effect whilst exploring these problems can be an
impact on pedagogy, which leads to serious contemplation
about the nature of the activities, and the facilitation of
well-structured questions that guide and nurture discovery.
The representational infrastructure offers a secure scaf-
folding that is grounded in the mathematical structure that
is efficiently preserved when the representations are exe-
cuted. We believe these serve as exemplars to develop a
methodology for analyzing more closely the action
between the users and the digital environment, and how
sensitivity towards a method of analyzing co-action can
lead to interesting insights regarding the discovery of
mathematical ideas.
4.2 Integrating representations and classroom
connectivity
SimCalc MathWorlds is a visually-rich software envi-
ronment that allows users to observe, and interact with
multiple and connected algebraic representations (tables,
graphs, functions) with executable simulations. The impact
of using this software in concert with mathematically-
meaningful participatory activities on learning and
engagement has been documented elsewhere (Hegedus &
M of linear functions.
T
S
R
P
Q
Fig. 5 Quadrilaterals inside a circle construction
513
Penuel, 2008; Roschelle, Tatar, Shectman & Knudsen,
2008). In particular, the role of wireless connectivity that is
integrated across various platforms into the latest versions
of the software has demonstrated impact on learning and
motivation in large-scale research projects (Hegedus,
Kaput, Dalton, Moniz & Roschelle, 2007). We draw on this
research to present two classroom vignettes to illustrate our
theory of how students do not have to wait passively to be
defined by their environment of situated learning but rather
through co-action can scaffold the very structure of the
mathematical activity.
First, we define a simple methodology used in SimCalc
classrooms that is integrated into the software environment
and the curriculum structure. A student receives a unique
identifier that is made up of a 2-digit group number and a
2-digit count-off number within that group. The number
resonates the physical set-up of the classroom and the
group structure of the students.
The numbers are used as parameters in the various
classroom activities. For example, we might ask a student
to construct a motion where you travel at 2 ft per second
but you start at your count-off number or you travel at a
velocity equal to your group number, and start at your
count-off number. Thus, the students begin to create linear
motions either graphically or algebraically, which is per-
sonally meaningful to them as it incorporates their own
login number. The numbers assist in classroom manage-
ment allowing the teacher to see who or which group is on-
task. A filtering functionality allows teachers to observe
and publicly display groups at a time (e.g., all of Group 2
or everyone with Count-off number 3). The identifiers also
allow the teacher to aggregate students’ work into a new
mathematically meaningful object, e.g., a family of func-
tions, and allow students to identify themselves within the
aggregated whole, mapping the variation in their identifier
and their classmates’ identifiers to the parametric variation
Filtering and sorting by group or count-off number also
allows the teacher to highlight aggregations of certain types
and illustrate commonalities between individual students’
work. In the class roster (sorted into groups) in the class-
room management window, selections of students’ work
can be shown or hidden (see Fig. 6).
By completing such an action, we draw attention to how
their personal identifier affects the graph and motion, and
when we vary group or count-off number, we are effec-
tively varying the parameters of the algebraic function, for
example, Y = MX ? B. In enabling students to distinguish
their identity relative to the creations of other individual
students, a teacher can sustain public debate to reason
differences or commonalities within the class aggregation.
We illustrate the impact of using such technology and
methodologies through two classroom vignettes.
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514
Fig. 6 Classroom manager
window
4.2.1 Classroom vignette 1: a staggered race
In our larger-scale studies we have implemented 6–
12 week curriculum interventions in high school algebra
classrooms. This initial activity sets the scene for standard
classroom practice in a connected environment (e.g.,
wireless laptops or labs) from such an intervention. Each
student creates a motion that travels at the same speed, say
3 ft per second for 6 s, but starts at their count-off number
within their group. They send their functions to the teacher
via the wireless network. A race is a natural scenario for
the activity but many could be used with only one
parameter varying in the motions of the activity.
Students can create motions by clicking and dragging
hot-spots located on the graphical segments to alter dura-
tion and slope. We limit the group size to 5 often with a
mixture of 3–5 in each group, to form an uncluttered
aggregation when displayed. In this activity, overlap occurs
between the same numbered individual in each group. So,
each student with Count-off number 1 will have a graphical
representation of Y = 3X ? 1 and start at 1 in the anima-
tion world above the graphs. This world is populated by
graphical characters (or dots) whose motions are also
defined by functional representations inputted by each
student (see Fig. 7).
Following aggregation of the work of every student, a
new learning opportunity begins where the contributed
work of each student is publicly displayed via the teacher’s
computer. Using the same SimCalc activity documents, the
students have a parallelism between their workspace and
the public workspace, except the public workspace has the
work of everybody. The contribution of each student is in
the graphical space, yet they are overlapped. In the world,
though, each student corresponds uniquely to one actor.
This way the animation world encapsulates each individual
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L. Moreno-Armella, S. J. Hegedus
student in the class (assuming they have sent some work to
the teacher via the network).
Displaying the same Cartesian space leads us to ask
many questions to the students, to understand more about
their contributions explicitly in relation to everyone else,
and implicitly, at first, relative to the mathematics. First,
we ask, ‘‘Where are you?’’ Identifying oneself in the
aggregate allows the students to reason with the object they
created and ask what makes it different from others. In this
case, it focuses attention on the starting value. This is a
fairly straightforward task for many if we show all graphs,
so at first we hide the graphs, and just display the animation
world. This now adds some ambiguity as there are 4–5
people at each count-off number. With the majority of the
class localized in the world, before we run the animation
we ask, ‘‘what does the motion for the whole group look
like?’’ Running this particular aggregation gives rise to a
parade marching in unison but off-set by starting position
(count-off number!). By allowing each actor to drop marks
each second (a location tracer), we aim to ground a core
idea, through this representational feature of the software,
that each actor is traveling at the same rate—as the spacing
between each mark is the same, i.e., each person has
identical velocity (see Fig. 8 where we have hidden some
of the characters). Dropping marks becomes a little
redundant in the later more complex activities, as there is
too much information on the screen, so we use it when
selecting individuals or certain groups.
This initial activity focuses students’ attention on the act
of varying one parameter and on what such actions give
rise to when aggregated as part of a group. It develops
reasoning by asking students to make sense of their work
(or themselves by personifying the actor) in relation to a
family of actors or functions. In this activity, we also see
the first family of functions and discuss similarities
Co-action with digital technologies
Fig. 7 SimCalc MathWorlds
Fig. 8 Staggered start,
staggered finish with marks
dropped
between the graphical representations and the similarities
of their individuals’ motions, elaborating parallelism as
each person’s graph has the same slope. Even this early
activity goes someway to explaining the high gains we
reported in questions of interpreting slope as rate and
families of graphs of same slope (Hegedus et al., 2007).
515
Many of the pedagogical features of this activity (e.g.,
asking students ‘‘where are you?’’) become quite generic
throughout our intervention being used in many of the
subsequent activities. From this activity, we systematically
vary the parameters in increasingly more rich and complex
ways.
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516 L. Moreno-Armella, S. J. Hegedus

4.2.2 Classroom vignette 2: varying slope (M) Count-off number six provided by a student ahead of task
systematically: slope as rate both positive and and as well as an interesting outlier.
negative Before we displayed the screen, we asked what the race
would look like when we ran the motions for the whole
The previous vignette demonstrated how students begin to class. The following excerpt illustrates the richness of the
develop a sense of variation in their construction of linear discussion:
functions by utilizing their unique identifier. It was unclear
T Okay {whistles}. We’ve got all kinds of different
at this point how much of our core mathematical ideas were
places… starting here. Remember, the activity was to
being addressed. While our activities illustrated how
start off at three times your count-off number. Now,
varying numbers in the boxes Y = h X? h led to varia-
did everybody use their count-off numbers from
tion in graphs and corresponding motions, it was unclear
yesterday?
whether our students understood the role of the parameters
All Yes
M and B in Y = MX ? B and to what they referred, i.e.,
slope as rate (rate of change of position with respect to time …
in our scenarios and later others). We administered a short
T Same one as yesterday, right? So, you start off at
test asking students what M and B meant by offering them
three times your count-off number… and then what
various statements from which to choose. The students did
then else?
not perform well and so our efforts turned to making these
J Give a hint
links explicit.
All There’s a tie
We returned to the staggered race scenario as in Vignette
T You have to finish in a tie with graph A, okay? Graph
1, but now concentrated on slope. Our activity ‘‘staggered
A was already there. You want it to finish in a tie,
start, simultaneous finish’’ was more complex than the
right? Okay, A is this one. {Points to line on screen}.
former and required the students to start at three times their
So why don’t we run this, and see if we succeeded
count-off number but end the race in a tie with a target
Re What do they expect to see before we run it?
function. The target racer moved at 2 ft per second for 6 s
T Oh. Okay. What do you expect to see if you’ve done
and started at zero (i.e., Y = 2X). Students now had to
this right?
calculate how fast they had to go to end the race in a tie and
P All of them on twelve
since they started at different positions, the slope of their
All They all land on twelve
graphs changed depending on where they started. Each
L They all end at twelve in 6-s
group was limited to five people and while the group
P Oh, we got the 6-s
number did not affect their constructions, it gave rise to a
T To what point? Lisa?
smaller, more manageable set of functions to discuss. Sec-
L They all end on twelve at 6-s
ond, and more important, the Count-off numbers four and
B In 6-s
five gave rise to two important slopes. Count-off number
T After going for 6-s
four had a graph with constant slope, Y = 0X ? 12, as he
B Yeah
started at 12 ft, the finish line, and so he did not have to
T So, you expect them… everybody… to end in a tie
move! Count-off number five started past the finish line
L Yeah. If they did it right. But we know two aren’t
(15 ft) and so he had to run backwards, thus forcing the
right already
student to calculate a negative slope. The class attempted
T Let’s give it a shot. {Runs perfectly. No errors. All
the problem using a variety of strategies including:
dots converge into one, multi-colored vertical line.}
• visual manipulation of the graphs (leaving the function Lookin’ good!
expression window out), TA It’s amazing. {everybody’s making impressed
• trial-and-error inputting values into the X-coefficient sounds}
field in the function expression window,
[J, P, L, B are students, T is the Teacher, TA a teacher
• end-point analysis (working out the slope via end
assistant and Re, the researcher. All signifies a majority
position minus the starting position) and,
response from the class].
• by comparing what others had done in their group and
At this point in the activity, the focus of attention is on
averaging (i.e., observing that the slope of each
the animation of the actors with only the world shown—as
person’s graph changed by 0.5 as you increased the
we have hidden the associated graphs. We intervened to
count-off number.
ask the question, ‘‘what do you expect to see before we run
Figure 9 highlights a class aggregation at the end of the it?’’ to investigate whether the students could perceive
race with an additional contribution for someone with what the aggregate motion would look like before we

123
Co-action with digital technologies
Fig. 9 Staggered start,
simultaneous finish
displayed it. We believe this is one of many specific ped-
agogical decisions that should occur in a connected class-
room. One more precocious student (L) has sent another
‘‘rogue’’ function and expects to see it differ from the
others.
We then ask the students what the associated graphs
would look like in order to fuse the aggregate motion with
a graphical representation of a family of functions. The
students begin to use interesting language (e.g., commune)
to describe what they expect to see and what co-ordinate
point the motions will intercept. Here, the students are
referring to the actors as clowns and frogs instead of dots as
they were allowed to switch the characters in their
documents.
A Show the world
T Show the world? What’s it gonna look like ? Hold
on. What’s it gonna look like?
All A bunch of frogs and clowns
L They’re all gonna commune together
T And they’re gonna be frogs and clowns
B That’s a big word
[A, K, L, and B are all students].
After we displayed the graphs, we asked for volunteers
to annotate the graphs displayed on the whiteboard with the
corresponding function representation. We arranged these
stylistically on the board so that each formula lined up
vertically to illustrate the variation in slope and y-intercept.
The motion metaphor becomes a reality in the dynamic
environment of the SimCalc software. By aggregating and
displaying the class work, students can observe how their
personal construction fits into the ‘‘race’’ and allows them
517
to note how people from other groups had constructed
identical motions because of their count-off number. In
addition, the shape of the graph and the parity of the slope
for those who had to start past the finish line (i.e., run
backwards) was made more realistic and understandable in
this motion-based scenario. The activity has opportunity
for discussing different strategies and making these explicit
in publicly examining outliers (incorrect answers) and
natural outliers (motions for students with Count-off
numbers 4 and 5).
Furthermore, we aimed to develop logical reasoning and
abstraction by asking students what the graph and the
function for a person with Count-off number 12, say, would
look like. This task was initially set for those who had
completed the task quickly but it later became a means for
generalization and abstraction for all members of the class
as we repeated the exercise by simply changing such values
as the length of the race, or the target graph, or traveling at
four times your count-off number.
4.2.3 Synthesis
Our theoretical backdrop describes how our ancestors were
not passively waiting to be defined by the surrounding
environment. In our examples, the technology as an envi-
ronment is scaffolding the activities both in terms of
appreciating the physical structure (by person and group)
of the classroom and the co-action between the students
and the students with the software. Students project their
identity onto the objects they have created in a connected
environment (Hegedus & Penuel, 2008) and realize the role
of these objects in the social and discursive network of the
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518
classroom. In our examples, we believe that speech—or
mathematical social speech—both from the teacher or
students, is an artifact of connectivity and co-action. It is
the ‘‘new object’’ that is malleable because of its inter-
action and co-action with the dynamic representational
capabilities and affordances of the technology, the social
fabric of the classroom, and pedagogy. Private to public
work offers a social ‘‘self-regulation’’ that informs the
learner within the learning community and the community
as a whole.
5 Conclusions
In the previous sections, we have presented a fundamental
idea: humans have been saturating the environment
through their artifact-mediated-activities. The outcome is a
medium that reflects humans because the environment is
re-created through these activities. But humans are not
cognitively immune through this process: they are sub-
jected to ever-deeper enculturation. This is the heart of
co-action for us and because of the new role of digital
technologies (in the examples we have presented) in
mathematics classrooms even more relevant to analyze
co-action within the affordances of these enhanced learning
environments.
Knowledge, in every case, depends on the mediation of
symbols and semiotic representations. The earliest example
of incised bones illustrates this assertion quite well. In the
case of mathematics, we come to the conclusion that
mathematical objects do not have intrinsic representations.
In conclusion, it is important to distinguish between the
epistemological problem and the didactic problem. Epis-
temologically speaking, the mathematical object is intro-
duced when we produce a semiotic representation that
enables us to talk about an experience being mathematized.
Tables are mathematical representations that allowed
ancient astronomers to discuss the mathematics of planet
revolutions. So those tables inaugurate the mathematical
object. Once we have another representation, we have a
new mathematical object: the previous meaning that we
developed through the first representation is now refracted
through the second representation. A new mathematical
object is defined by means of the two systems of repre-
sentations. It signifies something new. The evolution of a
mathematical object is translated into the iteration of this
semiotic activity. Our activities determine the fate of the
future object. Now, from the didactical side, the learner is
confronted with an already defined object (although the
object is always under construction) and the problem is
how to integrate the diverse perspectives and refractions
that come from each representation. The feeling of some-
thing that is ‘‘there’’ but that we cannot touch is like an
123
L. Moreno-Armella, S. J. Hegedus
illusion of objectivity (a pre-semiotic objectivity) leading to
Platonism. This illusion was the one felt by Hertz whilst
contemplating Maxwell’s equations. We identify objec-
tivity with the crystallized product of intentional semiotic
activity. Mathematical objectivity results from human
activity. It cannot be intrinsic to the objects because the
objects do not exist before the production of a semiotic
representation.
Let us conclude by asking this question, which is the
present focus of our on-going work: What happens when
we introduce digital semiotic representations?
As we have illustrated with our examples, a refraction of
the mathematical object will eventually take place in the
digital medium. The main characteristic of digital semiotic
representations is executability. This is what allows the co-
action between the human agent (learner) and the digital
medium. This executability is embodied in the objects as
they live in the digital ecology. Co-action is not just the
iteration of the interactions between the agent and the
environment but a Baldwinian process triggered by exec-
utability. These considerations have deep consequences for
mathematical epistemology and consequently, for mathe-
matics education that we conceive of as applied episte-
mology. One consequence of refracting mathematical
objects into digital dynamic media is the presence of new
ways to justify mathematical assertions. This will not result
from an abrupt replacement of the traditional epistemology
of proof but a new one. Rather, we are entering a phase of
exploration with border objects, which exhibit mathemat-
ical behaviors that as a result could be creating Baldwinian
conditions for future developments. We believe that
mathematics education cannot avoid these considerations
any longer.
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