Technology makes our
lives easier in countless area such as education, transportation,
telecommunication. I can say that everything which helps us to live and
understand something is a part of technology. Technology is a something is
always improving by the changing of living conditions. When I was a student in
primary school, my teacher sometimes uses the cyclopes in lessons but now
teachers use projection or something like these. We use the moodle system to
share announcements; we can load our assignments to there so we do not have to
take a printout thanks to moodle. Instructors use power point slides which is
more effective than books for instruction in lectures. I think these kinds of
things are all technology.
In math education,
using technology have also significant role. For example, I learn the
derivative in high school, I solved so many questions in lessons and exams in
these years. I thought that I am good at this subject. Some of my classmates
cannot solve the problems about it, I also helped them. When I saw the
definition of derivative at university, I cannot make sense of it. Then last
week the teacher showed us the graphic about derivative which is made with
Geometer’s Sketchpad. I really understood the what derivative is and where its
definition comes from. If all teacher uses these kinds of programs in math
lessons, number of the students who does not like mathematic might decrease. I
think the reason of disliking mathematic is that students cannot understand and
visualize some abstract things. By these kind of applications, mathematic could
become more understandable and enjoyable for students who do not like it.
Technology integration
makes learning more permanent especially for primary school students. When they
encounter three dimensional shapes, they might have difficulties about
understanding and visualizing. Integrating technology in math is useful for
teachers as much as student. One of the important advantages of technology
integrated in instruction for teachers is that they can save the time to draw
complicated shapes, graphs, etc. There is a vital point that should be
mentioned. Using technology provide to save the time but it is used just when
it is necessary. If we try to integrate it in every subject, it begins to be
disadvantage of us in terms of time saving because every subject is not
appropriate to use technology. It is the important to make this distinction.
Another crucial point is that firstly teachers should learn how they use the
technology in effective way. There are so many programs they can use but
teachers cannot utilize from these because they do not know how to use. Some
teachers have difficulties using them. These kinds of teachers should have
training or improve themselves not to have problems against students. It would
be absurd not to use technology in math class while these opportunities are
providing to us. I am aware of them and I am sure to use where it is needed and
how it should be done in my math classes.
The reason of why this
question is asked us is increasing our awareness of technology integration in
mathematics and this was beneficial for me to think about my thoughts in this
context. Before I write this assignment, I thought about which technological
applications and tools we used in past and now. Then I realized there are so
many programs that I do not know and I planned to use some of them in my
classes in the future.
