Technology Can Improve Attitudes and Motivations

Initially I was not convinced that calculator is beneficial for younger children because in my opinion, it can bypass the leaning process which often more important than simply knowing the final result. This can hinder the development of their intuitive and rational thinking. For example, student might know that 5x4 is 20 by pressing the buttons, but would they know that 5x4 is equivalent to the process of adding 5 for 4 times? 

But interestingly Chapter 7 on the use of Technology to teach Mathematics presents an approach where we can utilize calculator for the better education. Research shows that calculator can boost student’s enthusiasm to learn mathematics (Ellington, 2003). The presence of calculator will provide them accurate answer, therefore it lessen their anxiety of not getting the correct answer in the end. 

I chose a Math-activity taken from this website; http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/topic_t_1.html , on the topic of ‘Place Value Number Line’ to strengthen my point of the positive used of technology in mathematics learning.  

This activity would enhance students’ enthusiasm through the visualization of mathematics. For example, the screen-capture below (fig.1) allows the users to have better sense of number with relative to other numbers (e.g. number 580 is positioned about half of the scale range from 0-1000). Now student would find math more interesting as they can use their sense to relate with mathematics problem.

Fig.1. Number within hundred intervals

From fig.1, at the bottom of the screen, there are three options available: explore, practice, and test which the difficult level increases accordingly.  In the ‘test’ mode, the application does not allow students to undo their steps, whereas in the ‘practice’ mode, students are given opportunities to practice their understanding and skill, the "undo" function can be applied. In this mode, the history of children steps are tracked, so that children are able to track down on what they have done. 

In the ‘explore’ mode, students are given opportunities to do Mathematical exercises on Number Line aided by this 'explore' mode. 

Fig.2. Different scaling in number 

From fig.2 , the top of the blue triangle indicates the position of the chosen number within the hundred scale line. This will help to visualize the location of the chosen number within the hundred scales. In addition students can use the zoom in and zoom out function. Zoom in will allow users to have a more accurate visualization of the location of a specific number on a number line by bringing the scale of the numbers down (e.g.from hundreds to tens). 

Surely we understand better when we see!