GeoGebra

           I have never heard of GeoGebra until my co-worker told me about it. GeoGebra is an interactive geometry, algebra, and calculus application. Just like GSP (Geometry SketchPad), you can construct geometric figures, and uses the software to calculate the angle measures. Besides that, you can also input an algebra equation, and then the software can graph it, and solve it for you. There are so many other built in features and functions that you may need to spend some time figuring out. What makes this so special is that the application is free. You can just install it onto your computer, and then keep it forever. Unlike most Math software such as Maple, or GSP, you have a limited access time. I really like it once I start using. As a future teacher, I would love to incorporate it into my lessons, and introduce it to my students. because it is free, and you can do so much with it. It is a good software to have because students may use it to check their answers. They can use it as a free graphing calculator as well. If I'm teaching Geometry in the future, I will definitely use it to teach geometric theorems. Students may learn how to prove or make conjectures by doing geometric constructions using the software. It is a great tool that teachers shall really consider using in their classrooms.

Technology Integration Plan

For this project, I chose a lesson plan called "Paying for Your Wheels," which is the same one that I used for my inclusion class. It was a lesson plan that I got from Illuminations designed for high school students, and focused on data fitting in the context of real life application, owning a car. This lesson assumes students already have some basic prior knowledge about data fitting and linear regression model. Therefore, the goal of this lesson is to increase students’ prior understanding of fitting a regression model to a set of data. In this lesson, students will be introduced to the costs associated with a car, study the amount of fuel used by a car at various speed, perform regression analysis on speed versus fuel economy data, use the True Cost to Own calculator available at Edmunds.com to estimate the monthly cost of owning a specific car, study the relationship between speed and gas mileage, predict a car’s best gas mileage and find the line of best fit using a graphing calculator, and interpret the correlation coefficient. The lesson is aligned with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS).

The link to the lesson plan and the technology integration matrix that I have created for the lesson is provided at the end of this blog post. Each row of the matrix is under different subheadings: assess, analyze, evaluate, produce, and communicate. For the “assess” row, CCSS that I have chosen is “use functions fitted to data to solve problems in the context of the data.” The overall learning goal of the lesson is to use real life data to determine the monthly cost of owning a car by considering all the expenses such as fuel cost associated with it, and fitting a best fit line to the data to make prediction and derive a conclusion. In order to accomplish the goal, students will have to do research online, collect and analyze data, and derive a conclusion based on the result, which is the skills listed under the NETS-S4 and NETS-S5. Teaching strategies that I will use to facilitate students’ achievement of the standards are direct teaching (lecture), problem posing (explanation), class discussion, Q&A, note-taking, small group work, information gathering, and student collaboration. This part of the lesson will be mostly teacher-centered. I will give a short lecture on the costs associated with owning a car, and linear regression model by going over one short example on finding the line of best fit using a calculator, and interpreting the fit of the line by observing the correlation coefficient. And then, I will pose the problem to students, and provide opportunity for students to ask questions. Also, I will let students work in groups or pairs throughout the entire lesson, and go over the results with them. Students will work collaboratively to gather information and data online, and take notes on their findings. Supporting technologies that I have chosen are computers with internet access, a whiteboard or blackboard, and a TI-83 view screen overhead projector. I will use the view screen projector to show students how to calculate the line of best fit on the TI-83 calculator, and students may also use it to share their results with the class.  

For the “analyze” part of the matrix, CCSS that will be addressed is “interpret the correlation coefficient of a linear fit.” Students will have to do data fitting first, and then analyze how well the line fits the data by interpreting the meaning of the correlation coefficient. NETS-S4 will also be addressed because students will have to analyze data to derive a conclusion and make prediction. Strategies associated with this are guided class discussion, student participation, Q&A, and small-group work. This part of the lesson will be mostly student-centered, and requires student participation because students are entirely on their own in terms of gathering and analyzing data. They will work in small groups and at the end, I will start a class discussion on their findings, and ask specific questions to lead the discussion, and provide opportunity for students to raise questions. Technologies that are needed are the same except computers. Students do not need computers to do data analysis.

          For the “evaluate” row, CCSS that will be addressed is “informally assess the fit of a function by plotting.” Students will have to graph the data points on a scatterplot using a calculator, find the equation of the linear regression line, and evaluate the results given by the calculator. In order to do that, they will have to select the appropriate tool (calculator), and use the right built-in features of the tool, which meets NETS-S3. Also, this part of the lesson will be student-centered. Supporting technologies are pretty much the same.

         For the “produce” row, students will have to be able to compute the correlation coefficient using a calculator, fit a line to the data, and make conclusion based on the results, which meets CCSS.HSS-ID. C.8 and B.6a.  Technologies are the same, and this part of the lesson will consists of some teacher-centered strategies such as direct teaching, demonstration and explanation, some student-centered strategies such as student participation and collaboration, and a strategy that counts as both such as Q&A. I will demonstrate and explain to students how to use the calculator to find the equation of the line, and even teach them how to interpret the results correctly. It also requires students to ask and answer questions.

        For the “communicate” row, CCSS.HHS-ID.B.6 will be addressed. Students will have to be able to describe the relationship between two variables such as speed and gas mileage, and explain their results to the class. A supporting technology that I added to the list is a document camera. Students will be able to share their written work via the document camera while they are presenting their results to the class. Strategies associated with this part of the lesson are mostly student-centered such as student participation and collaboration, and class discussion, but I have also added another student centered strategy, a short presentation to allow students to communicate to their peers. The presentation meets NETS-S2, which is “collaborate and interact with peers.”  

Lesson Plan: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Lesson.aspx?id=2459

Technology Integration Matrix: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoaTIT87eE1dGEtOGJQMWpTc0hhcWF5ZjZadDZHb3c&usp=sharing

TI-83 View Screen Overhead Projector

When I was in high school, I was fascinated by the graphing calculator view screen overhead projector that my Math teacher used. He was able to connect a TI-83 calculator to a "special" projector, and we were all able to see his calculator's screen. Later, I actually did some research on that to get the actual name of the projector, and it is called the Viewscreen Overhead Projector. Below is an image of the projector. I love it because it is extremely useful in a Math classroom. When I teach a lesson on the graphs of trigonometric functions, instead of manually draw the graphs, which are often complicated to draw, I can just graph it on the calculator, and then project it onto the board, just so every one can see it. It will save teachers a lot of time, and teachers may also show their students how to input the function into the calculator as well since many students may don't even know how to do that. I feel that it is the most useful technology that I have encountered so far in a Math classroom. I have also seen teachers at my fieldwork site used it as well, and the lessons often went really well. Therefore, I will definitely use it in my future classroom when I am teaching students how to graph functions.

Virtual Manipulative

         In the method course that I took last semester, I came across virtual manipulative such as the Algebra Tiles, fraction bars, and base ten blocks that teachers may use to teach Math more effectively. We always claim that we want to incorporate more hands on activities in our lessons, but how do we do that? I believe that we should use manipulative effectively to support students'  learning. Manipulative provides a concrete representation of the abstract concept to assist students' understanding of the concept. For example, seeing 1/2 is equivalent to 2/4 may be difficult for many middle school students, and the fraction bars maybe a useful tool to teach equivalent fractions. The fraction bars allow students to see how 1/2 and 2/4 is visually represented by bars of the same length (1), but divided into different number of pieces. It helps students to understand that cutting the bar into 4 pieces and take 2 pieces is the same as cutting the bar into 2 pieces and take 1 piece. Manipulative is especially effective in helping students to understand abstract concepts and stimulate  students' interest in the subject. Most students like to learn with something in their hands that they can play with. Therefore, it is absolutely important to use virtual manipulative in a Math classroom to supports hands-on activities.

How should students take notes in a Math class?

               As I was reading through many of my classmates' blog posts, I realized that many of them touched upon the issue of taking notes with technology, and using eBooks or actual books. I would like to comment on the issue of taking notes with technology, either by typing everything on a computer or taking a picture and saving it in their phone. I am not against the idea of taking notes with a computer, but for Math, I believe that students shall actually write down notes with a pen or pencil. I type on my computer to take notes for many classes all the time, but I feel like it is much more effective and easier to actual write down notes with a pencil than trying to figure out how to type sigma in a word document. For math, there are many symbols and notations that you can't really "type." You have to click several tabs in Microsoft Word to insert a Greek symbol or square root, and that often takes too much time. It defeats the purpose of taking notes with a computer if students are wasting time on figuring out how to type all these math notations. Therefore, I believe that students shall not take notes with a computer in a Math classroom. The traditional note-taking is much more effective. In addition, students will be able to retain more information and remember the content better if they actually write the notes. I find that true all the time at my fieldwork site. Whenever my cooperating teacher asked students about an example that they had done before, the students always said something like "oh, I remembered I wrote that down somewhere in my notebook," and they would start flipping through their notebook and know exactly where to find it. As a result, I will strongly encourage my future students to take notes using a pen or pencil.

Socrative

              Coincidentally, I was able to observe an inclusive special education class. I really like how the teacher incorporated technology with Mathematics. The teacher gave out IPads to students, and they logged into a website, www.socrative.com. There was a chat room that the teacher had created, and they were able to do math problems and interact with others via the chat room. The teacher would post a multiple choice question in the chat room, and the students would be able to access it on their IPads and choose their answer. The website would actually tell the students whether they had chosen the right answer or not, and on the teacher’s screen, it would show the teacher what all the students had chosen. The teacher would go on to the next question after every student had answered it. The website also showed how many had chosen an answer, and how many were still working on it. I like how the website actually shows you the statistics or the spread out of the results. It allows teachers to monitor students’ progress, and which question troubles students the most. Therefore, teachers will be able to use the result to make appropriate adjustments in the lesson, and determine whether further clarification or reteach is required or not. In addition, students all are working at the same pace, as a group because the teacher would't go on to the next question until everyone had answered. I will definitely use it in my classroom if I have enough IPads or computers for every student. Students enjoy doing it, and this can be a great warm-up activity as well. 

Collaboration Canvas

      At first, I had a hard time figuring out how to collaborate math with other content area since my unit is so specific to Math. Therefore, I begun to review my classmates’ canvases, eventually choose the Ancient Egypt unit plan canvas to do the remix. The unit focused on the characteristics of Egyptian Art, and this can definitely be collaborated with my unit on polygons because shape is an important element of art. Shapes used in drawings can actually mean something. Therefore, I added a mathematical aspect to the Ancient Egypt unit by first figuring out the grade level that the original unit plan aimed for. The standards actually aimed for both 8^th grade, and 12^th grade, so I decided to align the collaborated unit with high school geometry standards. Since the two units are very different, I added three videos, and images to make the collaboration. I added the study of the Golden Ratio, and Egyptian architecture like the Great Pyramid to the original unit plan, so that students can understand the geometry behind it. I also added images of paintings and sculpture that could be used to study polygons. To connect the two units, I added two new essential questions, and changed the original essential question by adding a mathematical perspective to it. I asked students to think about the importance of polygons in the context of real life, and art. I did not remove anything from the original canvas because it collaborated with my unit pretty well. 

Remixed Canvas: 

http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2569&mode=view#network6

How to overcome Math anxiety with technology?

Nowadays, many students may have developed Mathematics anxiety; some are more severe than the others. As the name suggested, it is an anxiety about one’s ability to do Mathematics. If teachers don’t encourage students to keep trying, and convey the message that making mistake is an essential part of learning, students may easily develop anxiety in Math. When students reach the higher level Math classes such as Pre-Calculus or Calculus, they may not realize that grasping the concept require more efforts and time than before, and feel frustrated or discouraged when they don’t get it right away. As a result, I believe that teachers shall try to come up with ways to prevent their students from developing the anxiety, and technology may serve the purpose. Students in the 21th century tend to prefer reading an eBook over an actual book. Therefore, they will definitely want to learn Math even more if they can both play and learn at the same time. There are many educational apps out there that teachers may suggest to students such as Sudoku, Luminosity and the Math Workout. These games are fun to play, but also challenging as well. Most of them require mathematical thinking, and use of logic. Many of them are even free, so why don’t we bring that into our classroom and suggest them to our students? There may be some down time in the classroom, and teachers should just let students to play games like Luminosity rather than making them watch some random videos. This helps teachers to convey the message that learning Math is not hard or boring to students. By doing so, students may regain their confidence, or even develop interests in the subject. Overcoming the anxiety is easy if we can shift gear a little bit, and let students realize that Math isn’t something that hard to understand and useless by integrating educational apps into our lessons. Start off a Monday morning lesson with a Sudoku may not be a bad idea. Students will definitely want to learn it if they see that it is fun, and interactive.

Unit Plan Canvas

         My unit focuses on the properties and real life applications of the most common types of polygons (quadrilaterals, triangles, and polygons in general). Students will explore the sum of the interior angles using the Angle Sum tool on the Illuminations website, distinguish between polygons, calculating the area of polygons, and etc. The biggest challenge that I encountered when I created the canvas was coming up with an essential question that prepared students for the entire unit. The entire unit consists of different sub-topics such as the study of triangles and parallelograms, and don't necessary go along with each other. Therefore, coming up with an essential question that ties the entire unit together became my biggest challenge. Finding the videos and images were easy because there were many useful resources out there. I found a lot of great videos on YouTube and had to actually get rid of some to avoid putting too much thing on my canvas. Create this canvas really gets me to think about the entire unit, and I had to actually "plan-out" the unit by writing down the topics that will be covered in the unit to write my introduction for the canvas, and jot down standards that will addressed. The canvas is basically a layout of the unit, and I feel that this is helpful to students. They may get a sense of what they will be studying before hand. Introducing the unit through a canvas is a good way to get students started. Therefore, I will absolutely use this in my future classroom.

My Canvas for a Unit on Polygons:
http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2281&mode=view#network6

Scripted Instruction

When I was researching online and deciding what to write about for this week’s blog post, I came across a very interesting article called “Winning Equation: How Technology Can Help Save Math Education.” The article starts out with a powerful statement about the current math education in the United States. It says “Math education in the United States is a broken system.” I kind of agree to the statement and that one simple sentence explains why many students are currently struggling with basic Algebra. Although we know that many students are struggling in Math, but we don’t know how to deal with the struggle. Educators suggest that incorporating technology into the classroom may help. For example, the article suggests different online programs such as the Assistment Program and SimCalc that teachers may incorporate into the lessons in order to keep the lessons current and their students engaged. I agree that those programs may be helpful because we are now living in digital age, where many things can be accomplished through technology. We used to learn Math through lectures and practice worksheets. The teacher would talk and write notes on the board, then go over a couple of examples on the board, and that was it. But nowadays, students don’t like that since they are all being exposed to different technologies outside of schools. In order to make the learning experience meaningful to students and help students see the purpose of what they are learning, we need to relate our lessons to their daily lives. Therefore, I believe the need to make our lessons relevant to students’ lives is the biggest reason why the current school system continues to push teachers to incorporate technology into their classrooms.

Although those programs claim to help students to learn Math, but there are negative effects that the educators fail to consider when they suggest to integrate technology with Math. Teachers will tend to let the program to “guide” the curriculum or pace of the class. Once they have the program in the classroom, teachers tend to build their lessons around it. Teachers should be the one who is making the decisions such as what and how to teach according to students’ needs, not the program. Therefore, schools should be conscious of what program they are bringing in to the school and how teachers are using them. Those expensive programs shall only be a supplement to the curriculum, and not the curriculum. Also, giving online homework through educational websites such as WebAssign may not always be useful to students’ learning. It just makes the teacher’ life easier, and has no benefits to students’ learning at all. Students may make an educated guess to get the question right or work from the answer because students may find pattern in the answers once they have done enough of the problems. I remember that I used to purposefully get the question wrong for the first attempt, and then let the computer to show me the answer so that I can work from the answer to get the same question with different numbers right. Students can always find tricks or other ways to get things right when it is given online or through other technologies. Therefore, we need to be careful with how we incorporate technology into our lessons. 

Technology & Pedagogy

          By analyzing the lesson plan, I realize that teaching strategies and technologies used in the classroom have to directly support students' learning. I choose the lesson plan, "Adding it all up" because it aligns with the Common Core State Standards and NJCCCS, incorporates technology into the lesson and has clear learning objectives and goals. There are no gap between the curriculum goals, standards and teaching strategies. The lesson uses different teaching strategies such as class discussion, group works, and lecture to address the learning objectives and goals. The curriculum goals are perfectly aligned with the state standards as well. For example, having students to come up with the sum of the interior angles of a polygon formula (sum=180(n-2)) on their own addresses one of the Common Core Practice standards, "reason abstractly and quantitatively." Students first have to draw different polygons, use actual numbers to calculate the number of triangles that can be drawn in each polygon and the sum of its interior angles, and use that information to make conjecture about the sum of the interior angles of the polygon with n number of sides. Students reason quantitatively first and then use what they observe to reason the same problem abstractly. The Angle Sum tool aligns with the lesson because students are able to draw different polygons with different angle measures using technology and see what happen to the angles and angle sum. Drawing polygons with different angle measures by hand can be much more challenging than the actual task itself. Therefore, the Angle Sum tool is in perfect alignment with the technology standard in the NJCCCS and absolutely essential to achieve the curriculum goal. It supports the learning objective by letting students to explore the topic first, and then use what they have come up with using the Angle Sum tool to form a conjecture about what they think is true about polygons with different number of sides and angle measures. The lesson requires students to use inductive reasoning, and the Angle Sum tool clearly supports that.
          Although the lesson plan is well-written in terms of its alignment with the standards, I would like to add something to the lesson plan if I am going to teach this lesson to my students. I would probably let students to share their answers at the end rather than go over the answer with them as a class. I want students to confirm each other's answers by either defending their own answers or refuting other people's answers. In order to do that, students will have to show a deep understanding of the lesson. Therefore, I believe that the addition is necessary and will definitely help to improve this lesson plan.

Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoaTIT87eE1dG1WM2RzVTZrZk9xMmE4M25EdUFRVUE&usp=sharing

Integrating Technology into a Math Classroom

              After the Common Core State Standards has been adapted, more educators emphasize on the use of technology in the classroom and begin to shift from traditional lecture-based to interactive and integrated curriculum. Web-based resources and computer software such as GSP (Geometry Sketch Pad) become popular and more teachers begin to integrate them into their lessons. From what I have learned from all of my education courses, I come up with the conclusion that many students do not like math or can’t see the purpose of learning it derive from the lack interactions between students and teachers, and irrelevancy between the content and students’ lives. When I was in high school, my math teachers would just write notes and formulas all over the board, and then give us several examples to work on. That was the lesson, and not much interaction went on during the lessons because everyone was just busy copying down the notes. Without relating the content to students’ lives, students will not see the purpose of learning it. Online resources such as the free interactive learning sites called the Illuminations are capable of making the abstract content more accessible and relevant to what students experience in their everyday lives. Students are able to explore how completing the square works using the Algebra Tiles application, and graph quadratic functions using the graphing tool. As a result, I strongly believe that integrating technology into the classroom can definitely improve mathematics teaching, but the key is that making a successful transition is hard. Writing notes and formulas on the board is how many teachers used to teach Mathematics for the past twenty years, so it is often hard to change if they lack the knowledge that we have now about the use of technology in a classroom. Therefore, I think the key to make that transition is to educate the teachers on how to integrate technology effectively into their lessons first. Otherwise, all the effort that was spent on bringing in technology such as the SmartBoard into the classroom is just a waste of money and time. I have observed several different math classes already, and realized that the SmartBoard is nothing more than a piece of furniture for decorative purpose. Therefore, we must educate the teachers first in order to guarantee that students will have a meaningful and interactive learning experience. 

Teaching Machines or Teachers?

           Both the video and article have mentioned a “significant” technology that has had an impact upon education back in its time, which is the teaching machine, invented by psychologist B.F. Skinner. According to the article “A Social History of Media, Technology and Schooling,” the teaching machine is “basically a punchboard that contained multiple choice test items and the machine would evaluate the students’ responses and repeat the answers until the student selected the correct one” (Domine 4). Based on my prior knowledge about the teaching machines and the article, I come up with the conclusion that the teaching machines are not designated to foster active learning, but rather to produce passive learners who are looking for patterns or tricks in the answers. The teaching machine reminds me of an article that I read before for my method course. The article talks about how an educational program called the IPI (Individually Prescribed Instruction) Mathematics does not work out in teaching basic math skills such as performing operations on fractions and decimals. Students in the program work on math questions on their own, and then the teacher will check their answers using an answer key. One student in the program got through the program by making up his rules for operating on fractions, and the teacher even considered him as one of the advanced students. I realize that the teaching machine and the IPI program are similar in terms of the way it “teaches” the content to the students. Both of them do not really require a teacher, and students are basically “learning” on their own. The teaching machine is absolutely ineffective in teaching Mathematics because similar to the IPI program, students can look for patterns in the answers or use trial and error to get the question correct without understanding the concept. Also, what students end up develop is trial and error skill through drill and practice, rather than critical thinking and problem solving skills. Help students to develop conceptual understanding is the emphasis in teaching Mathematics. I am glad that the teaching machine is no longer in use. I really can’t imagine how students can learn Math using it. In Professor Domine’s article, the interviewee Grace described the teaching machine as “a piece of furniture” (Domine 4) and I think that is a perfect description for it. Even teachers such as Bessie at that time did not like the idea of teaching machines, and chose to ignore them.

            Rather than saying that the teaching machine was designed to help students learn or reduce teachers’ work load, it was designed to produce robot-like passive learners who learn the content through repeated exercises. Although math skills can be improved through repeated practice and exercise, but Math is not entirely about drill and practice. The purpose of teaching math to students is to help them to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills that they can apply in other areas as well. The teaching machine obviously can’t accomplish that since you have unlimited tries to guess the answers, and no thinking is really involved. Therefore, I do not think that the teaching machine is an effective technology in teaching Mathematics. 

History of Technology in Mathematics

The teaching machines help students to "master" their mathematics skills through drill and practice and trial and error, but fail to teach them how to apply and think critically of the content .

http://www.google.com/imgres?rlz=1C1TSND_enUS410US412&espv=210&es_sm=93&biw=1241&bih=606&tbm=isch&tbnid=Tt8smPJ8BmCXWM:&imgrefurl=http://aneddoticamagazine.com/2013/07/teaching-machines-programmed-instruction/&docid=dNF-K7Umiug0NM&imgurl=http://aneddoticamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/didak501-400w.jpg&w=400&h=221&ei=CbxeUoSAG9f_4AOX8YDIDw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:53,s:0,i:246&iact=rc&page=3&tbnh=166&tbnw=290&start=40&ndsp=21&tx=148&ty=104

Calculators in the Math Classrooms

Nowadays, the use of basic or graphing calculators is common in all Mathematics classes or standardized exams such as the SAT or ACT. Calculators are meant to save students’ time in doing basic operations such as adding or subtracting while they are solving multi-steps problems. As a result, more students tend to rely heavily on the calculators to do the basic addition, subtraction, division or multiplication for them, and eventually lose the ability to do them on their own. I think this has become a major issue in Mathematics education, many educators do not see this as a problem, which concerns me the most. I never get a chance to use the calculator in class until high school. But now, middle school teachers already start teaching their students how to use calculators. Few months ago, I went to observe a 7^th grade math class in a school at Newark and what I had seen surprised me. The teacher asked one student to get the basic pocket calculators from the closet and distribute it to every student. It is an eye-opening experience for me because I never know that students begin to use calculators in middle school, and the teacher does not see the risk of doing that. It is actually depressing to see that some students don’t even know what two times two is while they shall already have the multiplication table memorized, and have to input in into the calculator to get the answer. Moreover, I also saw the same thing happened in Montclair State University. I work at the Red Hawk Math Learning Center on campus as an undergraduate tutor. I actually saw some students, who are taking college-level math courses, did the same thing that those middle school students did. They can’t calculate what seven minus five is in their head, and have to physically put it into the calculator to get the answer. I really wonder how they are going to do in the class when they get to more advanced topics such as derivative. Therefore, I truly believe that calculators shall not be allowed until students are in more advanced math classes such as Pre-Calculus.

Allowing students to use calculators at an early age is not helping students to develop or enhance their basic Math skills. It actually takes away students’ opportunity to improve those skills so that they become natural, something that students shall be able to do without much effort. Fundamental skills such as being able to add or subtract two one digit numbers are absolutely crucial in students’ learning of Math. Math requires a lot of prior knowledge and basic skills, and concepts build upon each other. Therefore, you can’t miss any step in the process if you want to succeed in a Math class. If students rely on the calculator to do the basic stuff for them, how are they going to learn the more abstract concept?  Calculators are meant to make the process of solving Math problems easier and effective, but it doesn't mean that students shall depend on the calculators to do it for them. From what I have seen either at the school or tutoring center, I believe that calculators are harmful to students in middle school or basic math courses. Teaching them how to use the calculator is not helping them to learn those skills. Those skills shall become so natural that they do not even have to think much about it, and be able to do. I believe practice makes perfect. The more you practice your basic skills either by doing basic addition or multiplication in your head, the better your skills will be. So, I disagree with the use of calculators in Math class because Math isn't just about getting the answer quick, it is about grasping the basic skills and build up upon those skills.  

Technology Autobiography

The three most influential communications technologies that I have picked are cellphones, computers, and tablets such as IPad. The three technologies, especially my phone definitely play a major role in my life as a college student. I cannot live without my smartphone because it is like my “second brain.” Whenever I need to look up new information such as definitions, a restaurant’s address or math formulas, I just pull out my phone and google it. I get most of my news through my phone because I do not like to read newspaper. Reading the news becomes much more convenient. Besides that, most of my professors like to post homework solutions, lectures notes, and assignment on BlackBoard, and my assignments are mostly online readings.   Therefore, being able to access the internet using a smartphone or computer makes learning a lot easier. I am still able to catch up with the materials even if I have missed a class, and no longer have to worry about losing the worksheets that my professors give out in class. Besides my smartphone, computer and my Ipad also make me a better learner. Rather than going to the library and checking out some books, I like to read books on Ipad. I am able to read three different books at the same time without having to carry around three books with me. I also use the computer to type essays or do some research. Technology allows learning to take place at anytime and anywhere.

Although technology seems to make our lives easily for the most part, there are also some downsides to the overly reliance on technology. Over the past few years, I have lost some of my “natural” abilities such as communicating with people without constantly checking my phone, and remembering things without setting any reminder in my phone. Now, I can’t chat with people unless I have my phone in my hand, which makes the person whom I chat with feel that I am rude. My ability to retain learning materials is also impacted by the excessive use of technologies. I am used to taking notes by hand, but now, I take notes in class using my computer because it is much faster. Although taking notes becomes so much easily, but I can’t retain as much information as I used to be able to when I take notes by hand. Besides that, computer or cellphone become distracting sometimes when I study for a test or do my homework.  A Facebook or message notification may distract me easily while I am reading an article or writing an essay. Technologies have definitely shaped my life for better and for worse.

There are some similarities and differences between my uses of technologies and the uses of technologies among the young people in the video. In the video, one girl mentions that she learns Japanese through the internet. I also learned some Korean through the internet as well by watching Korean dramas, and listening to Korean songs online. Also, one student mentions how she uses her phone to take photos of her poster boards, and then uploads them online just so other people can also see. Sometimes, I use my phone as a note-taking tool as well. I just take a picture of my friends’ notes when I miss a class so that I am not missing out any new materials. There are also some differences between my uses of technologies as compared to the uses of technologies among the students in the video. One student in the video mentions that he plays games on the computer, and how the communication takes place in the games is similar to the communication between group members in real life. For the most part, I use my computer for schoolwork. I don’t play games on the computer so I do not see the connection that he mentions between games and real life. Most students in the video seem to use technologies for their hobbies such as listening to music, composing music or building a blog, which is very different from my uses of technology. My hobbies do not involve that much use of technology as compared to the hobbies of the students. But for the most part, my uses of technologies are very similar to the uses of technologies among the young people in the video.