The text defends that educational software can be fashioned in order to become potential instruments of alteration on the students' cognitive development course.The educational software has the objective of modifying the development of the students and must be psychological tools. Three "great waves" describe different relationships between the education and educational software. To analyze these relationships, they had collected articles from the international journals in sciences education for the reason that traditionally the education of sciences has presented important innovations in this area. The text concludes its arguments pointing out the function of educational software in the construction of the students' thought. At the same time it detaches the role of software in the teacher's cognitive and professional development.
Cognitive development; Learning; Measurement