1 Graphic Calculators in the Classroom: Students ’ VIEWPOINTS1 (original) (raw)

This paper presents the results of a study about the views and attitudes of students of a low achiev-ing 11th grade class who were involved in an innovative experience with graphic calculators for all academic year. Contrasting the results obtained from a questionnaire and from interviews, it con-cludes that students tended to point some improvements in the mathematics class, but attributed their origin more to their teacher ’ style and personality than to the use of this technology. Graphic calculators are a quite powerful new technology for mathematics teaching (Demana & Waits, 1990). They have obvious curricular implications, especially at high school and college level. They point towards significant content changes, emphasizing graphical representations, stressing issues such as units and scale; and they may even favor a shift in learning styles, with more exploration and student activity. This paper presents a study that investigated students ’ views and attitudes towards graph...