Re: TI-89 virtue email needed
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Re: TI-89 virtue email needed
Ray Kremer wrote in message <19980906021928.29808.qmail@hotmail.com>...
>in a general sense we must acknowledge that
>technology has much improved our standard of life, and many old skills
>have fallen by the wayside in favor of bigger and better things.
There is no question that technology has improved our standard of living but
I think the question is whether the learning enviornment should be or within
what bounds we should allow it's full power to be utilized (in this case,
sophisticated calculators.) My view is that the learning process should be
as comprehensive as possible( boring and tedious if you will.) By this I
mean that education's goal should be to teach the fundamentals that need
mastering in order to be fully prepare the student for eventual application
of that knowledge. I can buy a Roland keyboard and with a little work
possibly make alot of money but that doesn't make me pianist because the
Roland will do almost anything I tell it. But if I want to be pianist I have
no choice but the old fashioned way: tediouly practicing scales and studing
music theory week in and week out. Allowing a calculator to "do the work"
for the student so to speak, teaches him or her how to use the technology
but not the reasoning process that made the technology possible. Most of
the advances in technology we enjoy today come from advanced research and
business, which apply the fundamental principals we gain from education. It
is in these areas that the full force of technology should be employed, i.e.
the full capablities of the calculator.
>However, we must realise that this view will not entirely survive
>in the long term. There is nothing wrong with holding on to the past
>and present, but we must keep an eye to the future as well.
>The interesting thing is to watch the progression. I imagine that
>twenty years ago (or whatever) teacher got upset that calculators
>automated square roots. Now nobody cares, but they complain that
>calculators automate integrals. In twenty more years, no one will care
>about that, but there will be something new that the calculators can do
>that the teachers will be upset by.
>The abacus was replaced by the
>slide rule was replaced by the four function calculator was replaced by
>the graphing scientific calculator was replaced by...
>On the list have also appeared two responses to Tom Lake's message.
>They expound on the virtues of retaining skills, and are quite good
>themselves. If I could be fully on both sides of this issue, I would
>be. As it is, I am trying to find the happy medium of the topic, while
>also trying to anticipate what will actually occur in the real world and
>the reasons for it. It is a difficult debate, to be sure.
I am not sure teachers are upset with what technology can do, after all they
benefit as do we all. I think the legitimate concern may be that rather
than being an aid in learning as calculators have been, they are now capable
of supplanting learning due their increased capabilities. It may be and
probably is enevitable that these changes will occur but I can't see this as
a sound argument that the change is for the better due to its enevitablity.
We have regretted our decisions in the past and allowing technology to make
our life *to" easy may be another.
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