Mathematics has been, for a majority of high school teenagers a tedious chore, a nightmarish experience which still haunts them today. The children of those once frightened teenagers will not be put under the ferocious treatment of math problem solving any longer. A math problem which had once been solved in about 15 minutes by an average student, will now find its answer in less than 5 seconds.
PhotoMath is an application available for Apple’s iOS and Microsoft Windows phones, which will also develop an Android version starting from 2015. Be only a picture away from any mathematical problem solving, no matter how complex! PhotoMatch implies a simple process, which will submit users to no great effort or sophisticated practices. Basically, anyone who downloads PhotoMath and is able to take a picture can easily benefit from the advantages of the application. What is more, PhotoMath does not only provide the result of the photographed problem, but it lists the step by step solving process, with detailed explanations: ‘’PhotoMath reads and solves mathematical expressions by using the camera of your mobile device in real time. It makes math easy and simple by educating users how to solve math problems.’’
The on-going debate on the matter of the smart application involves educational institutions, mostly math teachers who agree that such a gimmick will defocus students from respecting the curricula and its norms, heavily endangered by the massive development of technology in the past years. Internet has already lessened the school work of students on many levels. Watching the cinematographic adaptation of a novel is way more fashionable and ready at hand that the traditional book reading.
On what level is the apparition of such technologies benefic to the future development of society? Truth is that education, in its conventional form, has already put the blame on phone applications such as PhotoMath when speaking of issues such as low school results, lack of interest, truancy or even school abandonment.
As a counter opinion, here is the reply of a teenage student who finds PhotoMath truly helpful and innovative: ‘‘I use it to check my math homework every night and it does it outstandingly. When I scan a problem it takes a millisecond to do on my iPhone and the steps are one of the most helpful things about it. The only problem I have with it is that when I have a problem like the square root of 72 it reduces it as far as it can go and the answer turns into many decimals. I was looking for an answer in its simplest form without decimals. Hope there is a simplifying feature soon but overall great app!’’