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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?

#381

Post by lenova »

clamprecht wrote: post #108
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).

In prison, only non-programmable calculators were allowed. A friend somehow had gotten a TI-85 in. I programmed it to say "NON-PROGRAMMABLE CALCULATOR" as its startup message, so they wouldn't take it during a random search. I also wrote a basic stock portfolio manager - this was the only chance I had to program during my 5 years there.

I fascinated by the hinted-at backstory here. Would you mind sharing how you came to program in prison? Was it before, or during your time that you learned?

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

#382

Post by rcarmo »

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…

Desmos has a separate “test mode” app.

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

#383

Post by dagw »

spookthesunset wrote: post #238
whatshisface wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the math department? They were a different story. No calculators. Period. Ever. Made higher-level calculus... interesting. When I took calculus the professor made sure that every arithmetic problem could be solved quickly. The trick he used was to carefully track factors when setting up the problem, so that the numbers never got very big, and also so that things had a way of cancelling (I can't tell you how man…

Yup. One clue you were going off course on a test in a high level math class was when all your numbers were getting rather crazy and unwieldy... Usually the same rule applied in physics exams too...

One clue you were going off course on a test in a high level math class was when all your numbers were getting rather crazy and unwieldy...

We had one professor who was rather infamous for being really sloppy when writing exam questions. On more than one occasion did he accidentally transpose a couple of numbers in a problem, turning an equation that should have easily reduced to a trivial linear problem into a 4th degree polynomial with complex roots.

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

#384

Post by willis936 »

jabl wrote: post #57

Is there (non TI funded) research showing that graphing calculators are actually helpful in high school level math education? I'm somewhat sceptical. I had a ti-85 in high school, but in university graphing calculators were verboten (basic scientific calculators were allowed). And I don't think they would have been useful, even if they would have been allowed. My university experience sort of mirrors my "real world"…

It’s a UI like any other. After many years of work on my TI-84, it’s still the fastest way for me to perform arithmetic and medium complexity evaluations. Anything heftier and I go to wolfram, matlab, or pen and paper.

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

#385

Post by eru »

jacobolus wrote: post #250
cydonian_monk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hig…

> Now the math department? They were a different story. No calculators. Period. Ever. Made higher-level calculus... interesting. There is no reason for any math course at any level to ever need a calculator, period. The point of math courses is learning to think, not learning to avoid fat-fingering tiny buttons or learning the specific crappy interface of some anachronistic antique machine. Without an electronic calc…

I like mathematics that's about concepts and understanding.

But numbers are a big part of some mathematics too. And getting some help with them can be useful.

Lots of our past mathematical geniuses were great at calculating by hand. And some of them even invented some mechanical calculators (or electronic ones, too).

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

#387

Post by Cthulhu_ »

brokenmachine wrote: post #223
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some prison rules are written in blood. Most prison rules are written in bureaucracy and profit motive. No prison escape movie ever ended with the guard preventing future escapes by instituting a new "no sleeveless shirts when visiting an inmate" rule.

Forgive my ignorance, but how do sleeveless shirts help facilitate an escape?

I'd argue it's something to do with decency, appearance, atmosphere, given that (at least in my culture) while T-shirts are fine, sleeveless shirts are seen as rather trashy.

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

#388

Post by bchanudet »

computator wrote: post #380
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…

I never heard of Desmos until now; it looks like an outstanding educational tool with pages and pages of exercises, demos, and aids for teaching math. But I can't fathom how they make money. Their "about" page lists 29 high-qualification employees, and they're located in a high-cost city (San Francisco). If the loaded cost of each employee is $150K, they'd have to make $4.3 million a year just to pay salaries and ove…

Their business model is actually described in the article:

> “Our business model is the exact opposite of TI’s,” says Luberoff: “Their model has always been to give [tech] away for free to textbook companies and force families to buy it at a premium price; our model is to give [tech] away for free to students, and charge textbook companies to integrate it.”

It must have been a challenge to convince textbook companies to pay for something they always got free with TI, but I suppose the network effect had a big role there, and also printing a QR code to an already-prepared graph on desmos must be easier than writing a complete set of instructions to get the same graph on your calculator, even if you limit yourself to one model.

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

#389

Post by pvorb »

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…

When I had my final math exam in 2008, all calculators used in the exam were reset by the teachers before the exam started.

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

#390

Post by jabl »

selimthegrim wrote: post #313
willis936 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this in emag instead of bothering with the grad, curl, laplacian, and spherical coordinate conversion by hand. I did them by hand in vector calc. All I’d be doing by doing it by hand is introducing room for error.

The real way to do this is using differential forms so you just have matrices that you read off. Using the appropriate metric and the normalized form you don't need to memorize anything (see section 5 of https://www.math.arizona.edu/~faris/methodsweb/manifold.pdf )

I learned EM the traditional way with vector calculus, but I regret I never got around to properly learn it formulated via one of the generalizations like geometric algebra or differential forms.

Oh well, maybe someone will write a magnus opus EM book using differential forms to rival Jackson's book, and the next generation of students can learn it.

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