Technology Used Within Mathematics

Mathematics today would not be comprehended so well without the use of different types of technology. Today we use math for just about everything. We use math to build houses and make blue prints, we use math in order to get the proper number of hot dogs with however many people you have over knowing that there are 8 hot dogs in each package, we use math to build our computers in order to make hard drives big enough to hold all of our information, and the list goes on. Technology used for math started with an abacus which is a counting device or in technical terms a mechanical device for making calculations consisting of a frame mounted with rods along which beads or balls are moved. In lower grades students use blocks for counting and grouping, as you get older students begin to use simple calculators for more difficult math problems, and once you hit high school and after that you use graphing calculators which are so complex you can plug in a problem and it will completely solve it for you. Not only do these graphing calculators have such a high solving technology they can also be configured to carry games and other non educational information. I personally do not agree with where technology has gone in mathematics. I feel as if technology makes the subject much more difficult to comprehend and it makes the problems harder to solve. When math was simple where you could use only your knowledge and long division with a pen or pencil to a piece of paper it was much easier to learn. Once math is mixed with technology many people become lost because they are no longer solving the problem for themselves they are simply plugging in the problems to the calculator and it solves it for them. Mathematics would be much simpler to be taught if it was nothing but pen to paper once you mix in technology there is only so much a teacher can teach without their students getting completely confused or lost it is much easier to be able to write notes and practice problems onto a chalk board or dry erase board showing each step of an equation. With technology it gives you the problem and the answer. It is a much lazier way in which teachers have resulted to in order to teach and teachers themselves learn this subject. Technology can be used for with math outside of the classroom, but it should not be a mandatory way to teach mathematics in schools. Many people are better hands on learners by seeing how a problem is solved by seeing step by step to get to the answer. I know it is much easier for me to see the problem and then solve it on my own step by step then write the solution.