Digital Smarts - The Place of Calculators

One movie you and your family may be interested in if you are curious about the history of technology is Hidden Figures, a story about the African American women who conceived some of the important mathematical constructs and engineering that aided the early US space effort. The movie shows the implementation of an IBM mainframe computer as part of the effort, but what may be shocking to some younger viewers is that smartphones, computers, and even calculators today possess several hundred times the computing power of that early device.

With the amazing capabilities of technology today, many are questioning their place in high school and college classrooms. Students in many high-school math classes employ graphing calculators, but research has shown the devices are often banned in high-level math classes at large research universities. Educators and experts continue to debate whether calculators help or harm math instruction. What are your thoughts?