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The best part is that people in the school administration might do something like blacklisting Wolfram Alpha on computers in the school library and feel like they've dealt successfully with the problem.
What the heck kind of article is this...? I can’t read it seriously.
You may cheat all you want on your homework, but if calculus tests are like they were when I was in college, taking your exam with no notes or calculator, if you've only cut and pasted from Wolfram Alpha all semester is going to lead you to getting an F in the course.
You may cheat all you want on your homework, but if calculus tests are like they were when I was in college, taking your exam with no notes or calculator, if you've only cut and pasted from Wolfram Alpha all semester is going to lead you to getting an F in the course.
Source: did this, got a C in freshman calc.
It is not cheating. It is leveling the playing field. Some students will inevitably have access to tutors or parents who can give them the full answer. With wolfram|Alpha all students have access to this. What this really show is that homework isn't the best tool for gauging student prowess.
You may cheat all you want on your homework, but if calculus tests are like they were when I was in college, taking your exam with no notes or calculator, if you've only cut and pasted from Wolfram Alpha all semester is going to lead you to getting an F in the course.
I wasn't even that dev-savvy (and still am not), but it was super easy and was a huge time-saver on timed tests.
I obviously had to learn the concept in order to program the equation, but once I did - why should I have to go through everything manually every single time?
This isn't new... I had a TI-89 in college that could solve for calculus equations. As someone else pointed out... we couldn't use it on tests though.
It is not cheating. It is leveling the playing field. Some students will inevitably have access to tutors or parents who can give them the full answer. With wolfram|Alpha all students have access to this. What this really show is that homework isn't the best tool for gauging student prowess.
Homework's largely supposed to be about reinforcing the lesson for math courses. For other courses it's largely about reading which shouldn't be done in class. Tests/essays are for assessment.
The amount of hw students get in the us is astounding. It's not always productive either (more often that not it's not). And it seems like there's no pushback against it.
Am I the only one here that would program their TI-83 in high school to run equations for me so I didn't have to solve them by hand? I wasn't even that dev-savvy (and still am not), but it was super easy and was a huge time-saver on timed tests. I obviously had to learn the concept in order to program the equation, but once I did - why should I have to go through everything manually every single time?