Are calculators as effective as they were intended to be? :: Technology Education Mathematics Essays

Are calculators as effective as they were intended to be? I can remember when I was in elementary school, we were never allowed to use calculators. I always seemed to excel in math, so I never really found it necessary to use one, usually. It was when I got into junior high when I first found myself looking for a calculator to help me do my math homework. I was taking pre-algebra, and I was struggling with learning the concepts. I just could not seem to get all the steps in the right order ever. My dad, who is a math genius in my opinion, showed me how to use a sophisticated calculator that would help me check my answers. He would not let me do my homework with it, but he allowed me to check it with his calculator. The teachers always made us show all of the steps, and if we used calculators the steps would be missing on the paper. So, I found it very helpful to use a calculator to check my answers. But I also thought that the calculators were somewhat confusing and complicated. I always felt like I was doing so much work to get to an answer than if I did it on my own on paper. I felt that it was easier to do the steps on the paper, than to remember all the buttons that I would have to push on the calculator. This is when I started wondering if calculators were as effective and efficient as they were intended. I think that the way I was taught in elementary school really effected the way I thought in junior high. I always assumed that it was "bad" to use a calculator for math problems, because that is the message that the teachers in elementary school sent to all the students. By them not allowing us to use us them and experiment with them, I feel that we were "turned off" by them really. This may have been caused by the lack of experience the teachers actually had. Also, they had been doing math for so long and they never used calculators. They did not see the need for the use of them.