As a math student in high school we were required to purchase graphing calculators. I remember my math teacher constantly saying how lucky we were to have such devices. She had not been as fortunate as us, she had had to do everything by hand during her time in school.
We would get a problem and dutifully plug in to our tables x and y values, or a formula for something and a graph would spit out the other end. Embarrassingly, I had no idea why I got the graph I did or what the values even meant. The only thing I learned, and I'm being honest about this, is which numbers to put into the x and which ones to put into y. Even at that time, I was aware of a complete disconnect between the concept behind the graph and the graph itself. So I find it interesting, then, that a person in the article describes technology as this really great tool that is going to "change the way kids learn. We're going to have kids do things, rather than I tell it to you and you tell it back to me, and I give you a grade for it". I was that kid, doing things, producing cool looking graphs, using the technology appropriately, getting a great grade, but not learning a thing. My efficiency with the calculator was masking my inability to understand the larger ideas. Increased technology does not necessarily equal increased learning.
But if the technology is there, you should use it. It's not the technology itself which makes the difference in teaching and learning, but rather "how it's used and by whom".
No comments:
Post a Comment