An Investigation about the usage of technology and computer in mathematics education

ABSTRACT Education is one of the most effective element of industrial and cultural development. Nowadays, all technical and technological equipment are required to be used in all areas of the educational systems. Obviously mathematics education is one of those areas and those equipments are well necessary for this field too. On the other hand, this technology must be controlled well enough in order to be used efficiently. Incontemporary education, in order to be more successful and more active, kids must use the computer and technology in their math education. This is almost compulsory in the countries like Turkey which is under the developing and having a primitive math education. The following study, is about the investigation of the usage of computer and technology and the level of software knowledge among the math students and the teachers who are responsible from teaching the math courses. How and in which way, the usage of technology effects the math education plus which computer aided applications are more useful for math education and which factors can be an obstackle for the usage of technology are also the additional aims of this study. In this research, in order to collect the relevant data, a public survey named "Usage of Computer Technologies in Math Education" is applied. The survey application areas are West region (İzmir), East region (Malatya) and North-east region (Trabzon). And the people who is applied this survey is limited with 576 students and 70 teachers. For the statistical solution of the research, a software SPSS. WIN is used and Ki- Square test is applied. Findings of the research can be summarized as below: 1. Both students and teachers have limited idea about the Scanners and Graphic Calculators. On the other hand these two groups have considerable amount of usage of Standart Calculators and TV- Video's. Although the technologies like Over- Head Projections, Slide-Projectors, Cd-Rom and Internet are known by the students and rx T.C YftffiEKÖ?RCTİMKDBDIJt 'ievAM urtMtomtteachers and some of these equipments are existing in the schools, the usage proportion is very low. The most common equipment used in classrooms are Calculators, Over head projections and Computer programs. 2. Most of the students and teachers believe that usage of Standart Calculator, Over-head Projection, Internet, Computer Softwares and Video-TV are useful in Math Education. A small group of subject thinks that Standard Calculator has no value at all. And all students and teachers have doubts about the usefulness of Graphic Calculator, Scanner, Slide Projection and CD-ROM. 3. All the students and the teachers are convinced that using the technology in math education helps the student to be more active in the classroom and increase the interest against the course. It also improves the ability of learning, prevents to be bored and decreases the learning time. 4. All the students and teachers believe that solving a problem, drawing a graph, simulations, various applications, creating calculation tables and using internet in the computer makes the math courses more attractive. On the other hand most of the subjects have no idea whether word processing, data processing, e-mail and games used in computers have any positive influence or not in math education. 5. Some math software such as Mathcat, Mathematica, Mapple, Sketchpad and Derive are not known among the students and teachers. But on the other hand, although the subjects aware of the software like Excel, Lotus and Logo these software are rarely in use in the math courses. 6. Because of: the lack of substructure of technology, ? Limited abilities of teachers to use this technology, a Lack of technical persons or technicians in the schools, a Being not aware of the positive sides of using technology in education, a Using technology is highly cost, time and energy dependable, a Schools management no positive attitude to encourage the usage of technology The students and teachers are claiming that the usage of technology in math education is effected negatively. 7. According to the subjects, the teacher must be aware of the importance of the computer in the math education. The teacher must also know at least one computerprogramming language, computer operating system, how and where to use the computer, and must be eligible to write a computer program suitable to his or hers course schedule. Beside these points, a technician as trouble-shooter for hardware problems and a sufficient number of computers in the classroom must be necessary. 8. According to the survey, using a computer in math education gives many benefits to the teacher. They think that by using a computer, a teacher can educate himself or herself and can increase his or hers efficiency very much. The teacher can reach the new knowledge sources, follow up the latest researches and can prepare the course material more easily and efficiently. Both teachers and students are agreed that a computer must also involve in math education. XI