undefined | Better HN

0 pointssgarland3mo ago0 comments

I know this will come across as a trope, but a calculator doesn’t seem to me to be at the same level as AI in most circumstances.

If we’re talking about grade school children who are learning multiplication, then yes, a calculator is unhelpful to their education. If we’re talking about a high school physics exam, it probably doesn’t matter if you can show your work on converting units so much as it does that you knew which formulae to use.

0 comments

ytoawwhra923mo ago

I think it's easy to say this now, because calculator technology is ubiquitous, assessment methods have been adapted to account for calculator use, and we now have multiple generations of adults who used calculators in schools as students.

And yet the debate on calculator use in schools raged for a good 40 years or so before it quietened down - only to be replaced a short decade or two later by AI cheating.

> If we’re talking about grade school children who are learning multiplication, then yes, a calculator is unhelpful to their education.

FWIW, research doesn't support this:

https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.46244543468...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42802150?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:176139

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse