Use of 3D software to develop abilities of visualization in Primary School

Abstract

The 3D geometry educational software is an interesting help for students to represent and manipulate spatial objects. In this paper we present a sequence of activities based on the rotation of cubes, by combining real cubes and representations on paper and computer. The activities on computer are based on the manipulation of several cubes created in Adobe Flash and GeoGebra. An objective of this research is to observe possible differences shown by students of different Primary Education grades, particularly those with high mathematical abilities, in the presence of their abilities of visualization and their mathematical talent when using each piece of software. The analysis of data also shows that the activities proposed with these applications are useful for students to learn to visualize the rotations and develop their visualization skills.