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

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

#361

Post by JohnBooty »

mmcgaha wrote: post #147
JohnBooty wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to high school in the early 90s, at the dawn of graphing calculators but before teachers were wise to the "notes" trick. One time before a calc test I dropped my graphing calculator. The battery door popped off and the batteries popped out. The unit was otherwise unharmed... but my cheat sheet in the notes app was gone! I nearly crapped my pants. Luckily though... as most cheaters know... to make a decent chea…

I am a little older than you, so my cheat sheets were on paper. There was definitely something about miniaturizing notes that reinforced learning. I made dozens of cheat sheets but never had to use one.

Yeah, the vast majority of mine were on paper!

    There was definitely something about miniaturizing notes that reinforced learning
We have to comprehend a thing in order to summarize it, right? The more compact the summary, the more comprehension required. =)

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

#362

Post by missosoup »

jacobolus wrote: post #358
missosoup wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really do problems of meaningful complexity without either a calculator or forcing your class to do a large amount of arithmetic which is really not what you're testing. And at the same time you can't really twist those problems around to not require arithmetic, without also making them abstract and too different from what's encountered in the real world. Try doing matrix multiplications for hidden markov c…

Nobody should be using a handheld calculator for nontrivial matrix multiplications. In “the real world” literally nobody does this. Making students do nontrivial matrix calculations on a timed in-class exam just tests their calculator skills. There are a wide variety of alternative types of problems which will better probe their understanding of the course. If your students are trying to learn about numerical linear…

> Making students do nontrivial matrix calculations on a timed in-class exam just tests their calculator skills [...]

> consider getting them implementing the relevant algorithms in computer code.

Cool, so we went from a statistics exam with no programming experience required, to a programming language exam with a theme of statistics. Because what? Because calculators are bad mmkay?

Yeah I'm not sure this idea has been thought through.

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

#363

Post by csande17 »

ggreer wrote: post #344
dTal wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it worked for you - but surely in an adversarial context, there's absolutely no way to trust a previously untrusted device. In the extreme case, the entire interface might simply be a simulacrum app designed to feign success at locking.

I don't know how that would work since the teacher could reboot the device or hit/swipe home to exit the fake app. If the fake app was in guided access mode, they'd see a pin input instead of a home screen. The only way to fool the teacher would be to jailbreak the device. The 6s running iOS 9 is the most recent untethered jailbreak. All newer devices and iOS versions will revert back to stock kernel after reboot. Th…

At least in the typical Desmos Test Mode use-case I've seen, the teacher never actually touches the device -- the student just holds up their phone with the confirmation screen when they hand in their test.

Yes, the teacher could do a more elaborate test sequence to verify that phones haven't been tampered with. But that requires (a) a bunch of time per student, and (b) an in-depth knowledge of technology and eye for UI details that Hacker News commentors have but schoolteachers often don't.

(Also, I'm not sure a jailbreak would really be required. On an iPhone X you could probably disable the Home-swipe gesture by setting that orientation to landscape or upside-down, drawing the UI and a fake home button right-side-up, and setting your app to "immersive mode" or whatever so the real home button auto-hides.)

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

#364

Post by read_if_gay_ »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #162
japhyr wrote: post #58

I've been a math and science teacher for the last 25 years. I have always told students they could use whatever device worked for them, and I have alway been very clear that the only reason TI calculators are so prevalent is because the test-taking companies require them. The only time I have encouraged their use is for students who are going to take a test that requires them, and even then they should only use them…

GeoGebra is quite widely used (at least in France, AFAIK): https://www.geogebra.org/

Same in Germany and Austria in my experience. Probably a European thing?

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

#365

Post by donatj »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #341
madengr wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I was in calc, you actually had to show your work, so a calculator was pointless.

I was in HS in the early 2000s and graphing calculator programs were advanced enough to show you the work on the way to the answer. You'd just copy the steps onto paper. Especially useful for blitzing homework.

I found a program like this about 6 months into my 8 month B.C. Calc class. I blame the discovery on my mediocre B.C. exam score, as while I knew how to do everything I was pretty slow at remembering how with my assigned calculator.

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

#366

Post by greggman2 »

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…

Going to be interesting in 50 years when the computers are implanted early in life

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

#367

Post by jacobolus »

missosoup wrote: post #362
jacobolus wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody should be using a handheld calculator for nontrivial matrix multiplications. In “the real world” literally nobody does this. Making students do nontrivial matrix calculations on a timed in-class exam just tests their calculator skills. There are a wide variety of alternative types of problems which will better probe their understanding of the course. If your students are trying to learn about numerical linear…

> Making students do nontrivial matrix calculations on a timed in-class exam just tests their calculator skills [...] > consider getting them implementing the relevant algorithms in computer code. Cool, so we went from a statistics exam with no programming experience required, to a programming language exam with a theme of statistics. Because what? Because calculators are bad mmkay? Yeah I'm not sure this idea has be…

I thought your big concern was “what's encountered in the real world”?

Seems to me like the concern is “what someone decided should be in the curriculum 30 years ago and nobody ever bothered to change even though it is now an anachronism”.

But anyway, I am suggesting writing programs could potentially be part of the homework, not part of exams. (At least, writing computer models was far more useful for learning about statistics than any textbook problem I ever did. YMMV.)

On timed in-class exams, there are many relevant pen and paper exercises that could be posed. Posing problems requiring a handheld calculator is a generally poor way to track whether students understand the content of a course. Then again, personally I think timed in-class exams are terrible. YMMV; some teachers seem to love them.

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

#368

Post by ppmanik »

I don't understand what kind of numeric calculations are needed by math students. I completed my graduate and PhD math studies without use of any calculator. I only needed a scientific calculator for Physics problems and even there I had made use of a Casio fx-991MS which cost me $10 .

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

#369

Post by Zardoz84 »

meanwhile on Europe (at least Spain), it's forbidden to use programmable calculators on exams. Casio semi-programable calculators (aka, no memory to store functions or programs when is poweroff) are very popular. Also, I never saw a exam or exercise that required to use a calculator (with the exception of some no trivial sin/cos values) Everything can be made with paper and a pencil.

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

#370

Post by kyancey »

nwallin wrote: post #333

Bedridges law of headlines: If the answer to a question posed in the headline of a news article is either "yes" or "no", the answer is "no". (paraphrased) I think the problem here is that this is ultimately left up to individual teachers, and 15% of them will take the easy way out and say "you can only use the ti-84. Not the Casio equivalent, not the HP equivalent, the ti-84”. Word goes around to not bother with the…

As a teacher, just having some kids using a TI-84 and some using a TI-89 is a headache. If I don't have a consistent set, I constantly have to stop and give two sets of instructions to account for minor UI differences. There's no way I could deal with everyone having different ones.
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