HIGH TECH GADGETS CHANGING WAY LESSONS ARE TAUGHT

A graphing calculator can teach higher mathematics.

The graphing calculators the students are using in Tracy Lohmeier's afternoon math class look intimating with an overload of buttons marked X, Y, Z, T and ALPHA in addition to the numbers you'd expect.

The Cape Central High School students follow along as Lohmeier instructs them on setting parameters, choosing a formula and keying in numbers. Then, with the touch of a button, there appears a graph for the equation Y=3X, an angled line that crosses the screen.

"Wow," several students say, excitedly.

Lohmeier then leads the students in inputting the same equation but squaring X. A touch of a button transforms the angled line into a V.

"Whoa," students say, turning from apprehensive kids into enthralled students ready to learn more.

Electronic gadgets like the graphing calculator, technological equipment like computers and Internet resources like educational Web sites are changing the look of the classroom as well as the way subjects are taught.

Students are still taught to do calculations with pencil and paper, said Lohmeier, a math teacher at Cape Central High School. Calculators, especially advanced ones like the graphing calculators, are used to enhance and reinforce that learning, she said.

A graphing calculator can quickly illustrate how different numbers and equations can affect the graph, something that would take hours to prepare with pencil and paper or on chalkboard.

The rapid way the calculators can change allows students to draw conclusions more quickly and have opened up the curriculum, Lohmeier said.

Making teaching with calculators even easier is the ability for teachers to plug a calculator into an overhead projector so students can see what the teacher is doing and follow along.

Calculators are used as a teaching tool primarily in college-track courses like academic algebra, trigonometry and calculus.

But even students in less advanced classes use them, mainly to check their work.

"Calculators do help add a degree of accuracy," said Gerald Richards, principal at Cape Central Junior High. "Even a good student will occasionally make a mental math error. Calculators can help students find their mistakes."

In fact, many of the math classes at Jackson High School require students to have a calculator, either their own or the school's, said Rick McClard, principal at Jackson High School

He's also seen students with electronic spell checkers, hand-held electronic dictionaries and electronic appointment books.

"It's just part of the world now. It's another way to make life a little easier," McClard said. "A lot of students are used to using electronic devises and so they are not uncomfortable with them."

Mark Ruark, assistant principal at Cape Central High School, believes the increase in use of electronic educational gadgets by students is due to their increased availability and more reasonable price.

"If I could have had a spell checker in school, I would have used it," Ruark said.

Susan Hekmat, an English teacher at Cape Central High School, encourages her students to use spell check and grammar check on the papers written on computers. But she offers a word of warning to those who rely on such computer programs.

"I just remind them that they still need to proofread what they have written," Hekmat said. Spell check programs only tell you if the word is spelled correctly, not if it's used correctly, she said.

Another potential problem, Hekmat said, is that when these students get to college and have to write in class, they may have gotten lazy about doing it right the first time.

Hekmat said 60 to 70 percent of her students have access to a computer. If that computer has Internet access, it opens up many avenues to research, graphics and artwork.

Richards sees a movement toward more computers in the classroom. He visited a computerized classroom near St. Louis last year that he thinks may be the wave of the future. The classroom had desk-based computers, enough for one computer for every two students. Students study information from Web sites instead of textbooks. They research subjects through the Internet, downloading information, pictures and graphics with which they can prepare reports.

Instead of a blackboard, teachers have a smart board, a screen hooked up to a main computer that shows images from computer programs or the Internet.

"It would be fantastic if all students had access to that," Richards said.