33 karma · joined January 12, 2014
When I began taking Calc 2 (as an adult who's worked and gone back to school), I found wolfram alpha's integral solver to be INCREDIBLY helpful for working through practice problems (to your point, I was using it as a check/next step assistance). I ended up with an A in that class because of Wolfram's ability to help me work through a problem regardless of the hour, or day.
I think if this (or a similar app) helps students work through problems and recognize errors they're making, it can absolutely be beneficial. I would concede with respect to the homework solver aspect, but hope that teachers could some how incorporate this into their classes, something along the lines of an account management system that shows the teachers which students are requesting which equation.
I find this interesting because it wasn't some flag on the PACER system screaming "HEY SOMEONE IS DOWNLOADING THESE EVERY TWO SECONDS" but instead was noticed because some law clerk was irritated at how slow the server was at responding.
Yikes - does that mean that we all needed engineering degrees to drive cars?