School 2.0. What does it mean to me?
*Disclaimer* I have one heck of a headache. And I've had a rough day. Not to complain, but you know how sometimes you're just in a bad mood, and you probably shouldn't answer subjective questions in that frame of mind? Here it goes...
I teach high school math. I teach Algebra II and Calculus. Here's what I encounter everyday, thanks to calculators.
"Ms. Spicer? What's 2 x 0?"
"What do you mean what's 2 x 0? It's 0. Anything times zero is zero."
"Oh. I forgot my calculator. Sorry."
Or better yet...division, multiplication's tricky little friend.
"Ms. Spicer? What's 5 divided by 1?"
"Are you kidding me???"
"No. Billy borrowed my calculator."
"For the love of Pete, it's 5!!!"
I won't even get into fractions.
My issue with technology is this: it seems to me that students learn to rely on it to the point of throwing basic fundamentals out the door. Call me old school. Call me a teacher with a massive headache right now. Whatever.
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. I graduated from UT Knoxville with a degree in mathematics. Guess what we were NEVER allowed to use on a test? Graphing calculators. (Don't have a heart attack, Dr. Wall. Just hear me out. ) The logic behind this rule was simple. We were forced to learn the material first. Old school. Pencil and paper. Straight up lecture. Books that smelled like mildew. What they had the wisdom to see was that once we learned the material, it wasn't a gigantic leap to THEN incorporate technology and expand our horizons. But first we learned it. And we learned it the hard way. It wasn't always fun. It wasn't always entertaining. It wasn't supposed to be. In some aspects, I feel we are spoiling this upcoming generation by constantly trying to stimulate them with graphics and other web tools. What happened to picking up a book and reading it? Or listening to (gasp) a 33 LP on a record player? For those of you who don't know what an LP is, allow me to broaden your horizons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_album There is something to be said for the sound those scratches make, and the way it makes you feel when you hear them. I just hope as we move forward in education, we don't lose sight of where we came from.
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Preach it sister! I am with you. Sad that we have come to miss the mildew smell of a good book. We couldn't use graphing calculators in engineering school "back in the day" either. I am reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode that showed someone sitting in front of a "computer" and they noticed that every time they typed in a certain sequence of numbers, the result was the same. By the end of the episode, this advanced civilization ended up creating the multiplication table! When I was 15, that seemed ridiculous, now, not so far away maybe. I am absolutely for technology, but not at the cost of real learning. Yes... I still do see value in writing spelling words three times each. :)
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