Technology Integration in Math

     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.