So, what is so special about this mental abacus method? The speed and visualisation is clear to see. This is one of the earliest known forms of computing devices developed by humans, beyond our own fingers, and used for centuries by merchants, traders, tax collectors and accountants, only proving less popular as electronic devices started taking the hard work out of these mathematical tasks.
But is the neglect of these historical mathematical devices a mistake?Įvidence has shown that early Abaci were developed 2,700 – 2,300 BC, with the earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dating to the 5th century BC¹. There was one probably tucked away in a play box in our own early years settings and dismissed as we went into our more formal classrooms. Most of us will be familiar with an abacus. This video, uploaded by Sanjay Shedge on YouTube, shows the system being effectively used by Indian students, but what is this method, and does it have a place in other mathematics classrooms? We explore this system in a bit more detail below. Watching young experts of the Mental Abacus mental maths strategy is rather awe inspiring, with the technique being widely used in a few cultures within India, China and Japan.
0 kommentar(er)
