Some BMS math teachers go by the rule, “If your homework takes you more than 30 minutes, then stop where you are and hand in what is complete.”

Although this may be a helpful method, many students ignore it and decide that there is a better way to avoid doing their homework in under 30 minutes and still, possibly, understanding it.

Photomath, an app launched by MicroBlink that allows people to either scan or type in a math problem that may be hard to understand, gives users instructions on how to do a problem along with an answer to it.
It has been downloaded without charge by more than six million people and, at one point since it hit the App Store, has been the number one app in eight countries. This app, while giving assistance and a chance to improve, is also an easy way to cheat on homework, whose purpose is to learn and become more prepared for a test.

“We didn’t develop Photomath as a cheating tool. We really wanted kids to learn. If you want to cheat, then find a way to cheat. But if you want to learn, you can use Photomath for that,” said TiJana Zganecthe, sales and marketing president for Photomath. Because Zganec is a biased source, it is difficult to say whether or not this quote has guaranteed accuracy due to the fact that the developers of the app must have had an idea that kids will use the app to find the answers and ignore the work done to find it.

Although there will always be kids who take advantage of free help, others instead utilize free help for the better.

The app made its debut in early 2015 and has since been doing superbly well on the App Store, but possibly for the wrong reasons. Photomath gives an option to look at the steps you take to complete a problem, but before showing you the steps, the answer to the problem pops up, making it easy to get the answer needed and not look at the work that’s necessary to get the answer. It reads the problem you scan in and scans it before giving a chance to re-look at a problem or even attempt the problem at all.

Mrs. Laurie Gray, an eighth grade red pod mathematics teacher, supports using the app if you are stuck on a problem. “If it’s used to check answers that’s great. It’s extremely similar to me giving an answer key to check work,” said Mrs. Gray.

“Kids could, for sure, benefit from using Photomath,” Gray goes on, “if they continuously checked the difficult problems they were facing with the app and learning why and how they went wrong, it could be great.”

The 4.5 star app, as it is rated in Apple’s App Store, is continuing to make itself better and more adaptable, developing a new scanner for handwritten equations.

The app has the potential to improve mathematics skill and performance, but, also, comes with the constant pressure to write down the answer without thinking.