FYI -- I haven't gotten these programs to work yet on my phone, but perhaps someone else can. http://media.haifa.ac.il/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2458&Ite%... Mobile math lab for cell phones July 10, 2007 Can kids finally get the answer to the perennial question: "Why do we need to study math?" The latest development of Prof. Michal Yerushalmy of the Institute for Alternatives in Education at the University of Haifa, may indeed provide the answer to this question through a medium that today's youth understand very well ­their cellular telephones. The applications that Prof. Yerushalmy developed, in cooperation with Arik Weizman and Zohar Shavit of the University of Haifa Computer Science Department, can be installed on most cellular phones on the market today. When installed, they enable cellular phones to function like computers - able to perform mathematical functions at different levels. Using a cell phone means that students are no longer reliant on computer classrooms in school and that educational opportunities are as mobile as students are. The program enables students to send graphs and formulas to one another as text messages, allowing them to work together to solve problems and involve any number of people to share in the learning process. "I believe that mathematics needs to be learned in creative ways, and not by memorization and repetition. Just as physics and biology labs teach through experimentation, I believe that there should also be math labs, where learning is experiential," said Prof. Yerushalmy. More information can be found on the website: www.math4mobile.com, which allows for program downloads and provides creative ideas for the application's usage. Once downloaded, the program can be shared with others by sending a text message with a link to the site