Wolfram!

When a gal in my cohort was catching me up on what I had missed in class she started to tell me about Wolfram, to which I replied, "Oh, yes, I am familiar with it. I have the app on my iPhone" She responded, "Cassandra, you've been keeping this a secret form me?!"
It's not that I was keeping it a secret from her as much as from my children! You see Wolfram is a computational knowledge engine and in my words, "a mother's best secret!" You see I have a teenager and a tween, both who think they are smarter than me and when it comes to school work, sometimes they are right! I hate to admit this.. a future teacher.. but they are studying so many new things that I studied years ago that I need that little friendly refresher course and I can get it from Wolfram!
Yo can ask anything from weather to culture to money and finance to socioeconomic data to math! Yes, math! The best part for a parent? IT shows you how to "show your work" on a math problem. So when my teen comes home and needs help with her high school math I can look up how to do on Wolfram and show her.
As a parent, this is a great tool. As an adult I have pulled out my app to answer disagreements on certain facts at a party. As a future educator? I hate the thing! Only because, how will I know my students haven't discovered this app and are using it at home, therefore not learning the math? It's times like this in the technology age that teachers need to get creative. I don't mean creative as in introducing Glogster, but creative in how to teach math and other subjects so that we know our students are learning it. The struggle is introducing certain technologies to keep the students interested but not to introduce how to cheat. It's a whole new issue to ponder.