Too much, too soon???

Last semester I took a class called Mathematics for Elementary Educators I. During the class our instructor had all the students in the class purchase a short novel as part of our course required texts. The title of his short novel was Math: Facing an American Phobia written by Marilyn Burns. The whole purpose of the book was to get people to realize math isn't as scary as everybody thinks. But not to the purpose of this blog... Chapter six in Burns' book is titled Calculators: Crutch or Tool? This whole chapter is all about kids using calculators and not actually learning the calculations themselves, hence the blog I am writing about how i feel students are using calculators too soon in their learning.

Picture used with permission from Pics4Learning






Now I am a very strong believer in integrating technology into the classroom, but some technology just seems un-needed at some levels of education. When I was in high school taking calculus my calculator was my best friend, but this was because I know what calculations were being done by the calculator to get to the answer. Now days when younger students are using calculators in the classroom they just know what they have to type in to get the proper answer out, they sometimes do not realize how the calculator is getting the answer. This is why i believe that calculators are introduced into the math classes too soon. I believe the students should have a very strong grasp on how to do all the calculations with paper and pencil before the calculator is introduced to them, then the teacher should emphasize that what the calculator is doing is all the same stuff the students do on the paper, but without showing the work. Personally I believe that students should not be exposed to calculators until around 4th grade, and that is with bare minimum use, just an introduction on what they do and how to use them properly!

Well Hi There Technology!

This is my very first experience with blogging! I am doing this for my edtech class and excited to see how it turns out! This blog will mainly be all about using technology in the classroom as a teacher!

Watch this video all about how technology is effecting our lives here in the United States!