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Software design is a crucial dimension in the educational use of technology and a key for transformative practices. The choice for this chapter, issued of a plenary panel at the study conference, has been to ask creators and designers of well established and widely used environments to contribute from his/her own unique expertise. After introductory remarks by the coordinator of the panel, each contributor exposes what visions drive his/her work and how.

One of the reasons teachers may resist the use of computers in the mathematics classrooms is the change that this introduction implies about the kind of problems fostering the acquisition of knowledge by the pupil. Some old problems become uninteresting in the new environment. Conversely computers allow the design of some new problems that are impossible in a paper and pencil environment. In our paper we consider the computer as part of the “milieu didactique” : as such it offers specific representations of knowledge, specific facilities and specific feedback to the pupils. We will discuss the role of these characteristics on the way mathematical objects may be perceived on the interface by the pupils and on the solving processes of the pupils when they are confronted to problem situations on the computer, using the geometry program Cabri-geometre.