I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them back

Re:I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them ... by alistairSH on Monday December 07, 2015 @09:45AM (#10689728)

Two counter-points... 1. Computers in classrooms have rarely, if ever, been deployed to entire classrooms in the way that tablets can be. Typically, you'll see one or two PCs in a class, plus a computer lab. PCs don't distract in the same way iPads can.

2. Calculators do make people worse at math. I saw this first-hand with my son. As he went through school, they used calculators for everything. Students began to rely on the calculators for simple arithmetic and took the answers provided as gospel, not realizing that garbage in = garbage out. He, along with many of his peers, never really developed the fluency in math to say to themselves "hmm, that answer looks suspect. Let me try again."

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Re:I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them ... by Vraxx on Monday December 07, 2015 @10:06AM (#10689883)

Counter anecdote to your calculator anecdote. I grew up using calculators all through school and excelled in knowing math. Using a calculator did not inhibit my ability to question the result of the calculator whatsoever. I don't think calculators are necessarily to blame here.

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Re:I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them ... by jacquesm on Monday December 07, 2015 @09:54AM (#10689815)

But you as a parent could easily fix that. Schools don't have a monopoly on education.

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Re:I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them ... by alistairSH on Monday December 07, 2015 @04:11PM (#10692733)

Of course, and we did. But, I continue to believe that allowing calculators on ALL mathematics work from a young age does the student a disservice. Calculators certainly have their place, but elementary school arithmetic is not that place.

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Re:I gave my students iPads – then wished I could take them ... by jacquesm on Monday December 07, 2015 @04:40PM (#10692924)

Agreed. So I taught my eldest arithmetic at home and discouraged the schools from giving him more calculators until the sums involved more than two digits and other operators than the basic four. After the third calculator they got the message. Interesting aside: the teacher couldn't do anything beyond single digit arithmetic without reference to a calculator either. Pretty sad affair, and I really wonder how someone who does not understand the basics gets to be a teacher.

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