Graphing Technology Helps Narrow the Digital Divide

To ensure that technology use benefits all students, it must be accessible with respect to cost and ease of use. Moreover, technology needs to be integrated by considering it from the perspective of the curriculum.

The Impact of Teacher Self-Efficacy on the Level of Implementation of Graphing Technology in Teaching Factoring Quadratic Functions in Introductory Algebra

The purpose of the study was to determine whether there is a relationship between self-efficacy of global and local algebra teachers and their level of incorporating technology in teaching factoring quadratic functions to introductory algebra students. The participants (54 mathematics educators form 15 countries and five continents) replied to the UVGIA survey instrument. Quantitative analysis of data brought the conclusion that there is a strong positive relationship between the level of self-efficacy of teachers and their level of implementations of technology regardless of country of origin.

Finding a Formula for the Antiderivative of 1/x

Calculus students extend the power rule for antiderivatives using limits and graphing technology to recover the natural logarithm.

A Study of Art Creation Using of Hand-Drawing Skills Combining Computer Graphing Technology

This study aimed to perform art creation for picture books using hand-drawing skills combining computer graphing technology. The beginning of this study illustrated the characteristics of the mixed media used as paints. Case study was applied so that, through the discussion teaching method, the students could interact with the teacher to determine the themes of picture books, the contents, and the storyboards, and further come up with their art creations for picture books. Then, the students were guided to use the computer graphing software to process the images, arrange layouts, design front and back covers and inside pages, to complete art creation using of hand-drawing skills combining computer graphing technology.

Equivalent Representations in the Learning of Algebra

In the past few years, much discussion has taken place about what direction the teaching of algebra should take in view of the NCTM's Standards documents (1989, 1991, 1995), the increased availability of graphing technology, and the movement toward “algebra for all.” Because we view algebra as a language for expressing relationships between quantities and for exploring patterns, we support a functional approach to the subject in which all ideas are put in a context and graphing calculators are used extensively. Within tills framework, however, students who are trying to learn algebra experience subtle difficulties. On the one hand, students fail to recognize the underlying equivalence when the same set of points is represented by a graph or an equation or a table. On the other hand, when given an algebraic representation for a particular function, students fail to see that they can use the rules of algebra to produce an equivalent expression. In both situations, they tend to see changes in form as producing unrelated representations.