Wolfram Alpha Rekindles Campus Math Tool Debate

An anonymous reader sends in a story about how Wolfram Alpha is becoming the latest tool students are using to help with their schoolwork, and why some professors are worried it will interfere with the learning process. Quoting: "The goal of WolframAlpha is to bring high-level mathematics to the masses, by letting users type in problems in plain English and delivering instant results. As a result, some professors say the service poses tough questions for their classroom policies. 'I think this is going to reignite a math war,' said Maria H. Andersen, a mathematics instructor at Muskegon Community College, referring to past debates over the role of graphing calculators in math education. 'Given that there are still pockets of instructors and departments in the US where graphing calculators are still not allowed, some instructors will likely react with resistance (i.e. we still don't change anything) or possibly even with the charge that using WA is cheating.'"

Comments

Oh man

[Caboosian]

I just don't know if I can deal with all this math-debating.

Damn you Wolfram!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Wolfram Alpha has been a big buzz kill for me.... My query was "average penis length?".... WA answered: 5.94 inches.

Now I understand the meaning of "ignorance is a bliss"

Sweet, let's try it out!

[l00sr]

Let X_n and Y_n be positive integrable and adapted to F_n. Suppose E(X_{n+1}|F_n) \leq X_n + Y_n, with \sum Y_n \lt \infty a.s. Prove that X_n converges a.s. to a finite limit.

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input.
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Useless!

Using the book is cheating!

[GWBasic]

Using math books is cheating. The only REAL way to learn algebra or calculus is to re-invent it like people did hundreds of years ago!