Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#71

Post by therealrootuser » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #21

jmcphers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily store notes on a TI calculator. I had a TI-85 in college, and was occasionally guilty of writing TI-BASIC programs to make tests easier (for example, I had one which computed Euler's method).

Most test proctors make you clear your memory before a test in high school. In college they don't care as much because they are used to making "open book tests".

There was the little known, but powerful combo called "GROUP" and "ARCHIVE". GROUP allowed you to package together a set of programs. Archive would allow you to take that group and store it in the long term memory of the calculator. You can then "clear the memory" of the calculator, but can then immediately unarchive the grouped programs and get everything back how it was.

That said, I don't recall my teachers ever getting too fussy about having us clear our memory; in fact, iirc one of them actually told us to write programs to handle some of the nastier formulas.

Anyway, in my opinion, a good mathematics course should focus less on regurgitation of formulas, and more on problems solving---recognizing which theorems or strategies might apply to a problem and applying them to come up with a result.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#72

Post by asmithmd1 » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

jmcphers wrote: post #16

jedberg wrote: post #7

This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added. As long as that is the case, they will win, because the test companies don't want to deal with people having internet access and notes. Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break…

You can easily store notes on a TI calculator. I had a TI-85 in college, and was occasionally guilty of writing TI-BASIC programs to make tests easier (for example, I had one which computed Euler's method).

I tried to cheat this exact same way with a test on the the Newton–Raphson method. My program even showed intermediate values so I could show my work.

The professor still got me, I wound up memorizing it because the effort it to write and debug the program.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#73

Post by takk309 » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

I still have and use my TI-84+ that I purchased when I started college. As a professional I use it here and there but rarely for anything that actually needs more than a basic scientific calculator. During college (civil engineering) I used many of the more powerful functions like matrix math stuff. In high school, I don't think I used a graphing calculator once. Just doesn't seem necessary to teach geometry and algebra 2 in my mind.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#74

Post by ars » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #29

Casio makes several graphing calculators that are cheaper and faster than the TIs. $70 gets you the top color one that can run Python programs and is test compliant - it has a flashing test mode that disables all user memory. But the $35 b&w one works just as well for tests. So low income parents can get a good graphing calculator that does it all for around 1/4 the price of the recommended TIs. Students fear Casio b…

The Casio fx-115ES PLUS is one of the best (non graphing) and is only $16.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#75

Post by K2h » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

HP-41C (non graphing) was used on the space shuttle. I thought it was inline as a failsafe in case of the loss of one or part of the main computers but I can't find that from a quick search. here((1) is a quick article on the HP-41C used at NASA

(1) https://www.hpmuseum.net/pdf/KeyNotes_1981_Jan_Vol5No1_17pag...

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#76

Post by tzs » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #7

This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added. As long as that is the case, they will win, because the test companies don't want to deal with people having internet access and notes. Now if Apple/Android made a simple way for a test proctor to put your phone into a single app only that you couldn't easily break…

> This can be summed up pretty easily. The TI graphing calculator has no internet access and no ability to store notes. Neither ability can be easily added.

There was a similar concern with typewriters when I wanted to type rather than hand write exams in law school in the '90s. By then most typewriters included some memory and some kind of display, with a delay between your typing and putting the characters on the paper so that you could correct recent errors without needing white-out. Some typewriters were essentially dedicated word processors that could hold one or more pages in memory, sometimes even in non-volatile memory.

To prevent cheating via typewriter, my school only allowed typewriters that had at most two lines of memory. I remember that I had a hard time finding a typewriter that was sufficiently limited.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#77

Post by cydonian_monk » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #39

jedberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most test proctors make you clear your memory before a test in high school. In college they don't care as much because they are used to making "open book tests".

Yes most of my engineering classes back in college allowed you to use a cheat-sheet. Cheat sheets are way faster than thumbing through a book or notes in a calculator. And most problems required you to show your work. Maybe you could cross-check your results and fix something. The funny thing is to an extent, the performance of the student seems to be inversely proportional to the density of the cheat-sheet. The wors…

Cheat-sheets are also far more "real world" than the fake environment many schools cling to. I don't know a single practicing engineer that doesn't have a note scribbled somewhere. My engineering school recognized this decades ago and adjusted accordingly.

Now the math department? They were a different story. No calculators. Period. Ever. Made higher-level calculus... interesting. Thankfully I'd already had it in high school in a tools-based curriculum, so repeating it with just fundamentals was less of a headache than it might've been.

And I agree - the simpler the cheat sheet the better of an understanding of the subject the pupil is likely to have.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#78

Post by takk309 » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

jordache wrote: post #24

HP 48g FTW! Seriously considered it's IR data sharing capabilities with other classmates... imagine beaming messages across the room!

I had an HP 48g for some time and I loved the feeling of the buttons. It did take a long while to get used to the reverse polish notation. Sadly that calculator died on me. I still use an app on my phone as the go to calculator.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#79

Post by notJim » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #69

jmcphers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily store notes on a TI calculator. I had a TI-85 in college, and was occasionally guilty of writing TI-BASIC programs to make tests easier (for example, I had one which computed Euler's method).

I think a better solution is to have the school purchase all of the calculators and give them to students at the time of the exam. This also would align with driving costs down since schools will not want to pay $100 per calculator for their student body.

So then you'd have to use a calculator you've never used before during a high stakes exam? Doesn't sound good to me.

Re: Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?

#80

Post by monocasa » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #69

jmcphers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily store notes on a TI calculator. I had a TI-85 in college, and was occasionally guilty of writing TI-BASIC programs to make tests easier (for example, I had one which computed Euler's method).

I think a better solution is to have the school purchase all of the calculators and give them to students at the time of the exam. This also would align with driving costs down since schools will not want to pay $100 per calculator for their student body.

> This also would align with driving costs down since schools will not want to pay $100 per calculator for their student body.

Lol, I don't think I've seen that argument made before. They already pay near college prices for the text books.