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Prevalence of technology development in mathematics: calculators How has technology related to math have developed for millennia?

A calculator is an invention that helps humans to do complex calculations which are hard to do only with brains. The “history of calculators — really begins somewhere around 2,500 to 2,000 BCE with the invention of the Abacus which was first used in Sumeria (now Iraq) and Egypt” (Nickzom). As time went by, it passed through many different types of calculators which developed in various ways.

Some people argue that the use of calculators is ruining pure mathematics. In detail, they claimed that when the human dependence on calculators increases, it is not math anymore. On the contrary, others say that mathematics has been transformed since the invention of the calculator, resulting in diverse methods such as applied mathematics. They believe the development of calculators helped to achieve human math improvement.

IB® Diploma Programme allows or requires a graphing calculator, which is a TI-84 Plus CE calculator. Therefore, ISB teachers and students also use the TI-84 Plus CE calculator for many classes. As a matter of a course, mathematics is a study that needs the most usage of calculators among many classes. In particular, IB Mathematics Applications & Interpretation (AI) is a class that is based on calculator mathematics.

What would a math teacher at ISB, who is an expert in mathematics, think about the calculator? IB Mathematics Applications & Interpretation teacher, Ms.Friedman said “After I taught math AI class I realized technology is an awesome thing that all students should be able to use technology to help them learn math”.

Not only the math teacher but also students in IB Math AI students like Sophie Muntzing said about the usage of calculators in math as “I think that it is more important to understand the concepts we learn in math, rather than to be able to solve them by hand without a calculator”. Another math AI student, Perrine Sithi-Amnuai also voiced “I think as the world develops, we need to learn newly developed mathematical skills which can adapt well to the world's change. It is inefficient to persist with original or classic mathematics that people did decades ago”.

In conclusion, everyone has different perspectives on the use of calculators in mathematics. So people’s arguments might be the opposite. Nevertheless, from the perspectives of people who experienced mathematics with technology (calculators) in real life, their preference for calculators was pretty high. Having said that calculator has positive effect for modern mathematics, Ms.Friedman advised: “students definitely can use calculators for problem-solving, however, they should not rely on technology completely because sometimes they will get an answer from a calculator that won't make sense and you can't trust technology”.

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