The computer algebra systems (CAS) such as Mathematica, Maple, MuPAD, MathCAD,
Derive, Maxima have potential to facilitate an active approach to learning, to allow students to become involved in discovery and to consolidate their own knowledge, thus developing conceptual and geometrical understanding and a deeper approach to learning. Emergence of such mathematical tools and its ability to deal with most of the undergraduate mathematics cannot be ignored by mathematics educators. Use of Computer Algebra Systems in mathematics teaching is in its infancy in India.

The main idea of this paper is to give introduction to computer algebra systems, its advantages and disadvantages in mathematics teaching. We include our experiment and experiences in Mumbai University, India, where an attempt was made to include CAS-based practicals at the final year under graduate mathematics course. However this experiment did not really work. We look at some of the reasons due to which this experiment did not work and the lessons we learned from this experiment. We also mention some of the challenges one faces in the deployment of CAS in teaching mathematics and some steps
to be taken to overcome these challenges in India. Some of our experiences may also be useful to mathematics educators from other developing countries, which lack the necessary infrastructure and technical expertise to implement these ideas. We believe that mathematics teaching can be made much more interesting, inventive and exploratory using CAS. We include a small module developed using a MuPAD Pro to support our claim. The role of teachers is very important in order to make the effective use of available mathematical tools.