Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 460 posts

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

#141

Post by clamprecht »

russfink wrote: post #111
clamprecht wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would they care about a calculator?

Non-programmable calculators were fine - computers were not. A programmable calculator is basically a computer. In a computer you could store data that they couldn't access (encryption, even if it's very basic). Could be a list of gambling debts, escape plans, or other horrors. Most prison rules are "written in blood", so to speak.

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

#142

Post by vkou »

melq wrote: post #102

As a reformed math major (that is, I've forgotten all my schooling), I think its worth debating whether or not there is even any value in having middle school / high school students use these calculators in the first place, let alone requiring them. In my hastily formed opinion, I think students might be better off learning without them. What does the average 7th grader need a CAS for?

Nothing. There's not a single operation that you learn between grades 7 and 12 that requires anything more than a scientific, non-graphic calculator to perform.

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

#143

Post by droithomme »

ars wrote: post #74
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.

Yes, that's the specific model I was thinking of and which I use most often these days. It's really great for its price range. Only feature I miss on it is being able to do simple macro programming which I had in a $12 compact Casio scientific from around 1988 that was my favorite calculator.

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

#144

Post by droithomme »

bllguo wrote: post #84
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…

i wont claim to be a serious badass, but taking these exams without a calculator is very doable when you consider how the questions are scored. I forgot my calculator for ap phys C and just left all my answers in symbolic form without numerically evaluating them. If your steps are correct you get the vast majority of the credit regardless

> i wont claim to be a serious badass

AP Physics C without a calculator qualifies you!

Some of the most fun teachers had open-book open-note any-calculator tests for various technical subjects, but the questions were carefully designed so that if you stopped to rifle through a book or notes or pull out the calculator, you would run out of time. Everything was set up to be symbolically done faster if you knew your stuff. In addition many students hearing open-book open-note simply don't bother to study and thus blow the test that way despite having too many resources available to distract them during the test.

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

#145

Post by Avamander »

vkou wrote: post #142
melq wrote: post #102

As a reformed math major (that is, I've forgotten all my schooling), I think its worth debating whether or not there is even any value in having middle school / high school students use these calculators in the first place, let alone requiring them. In my hastily formed opinion, I think students might be better off learning without them. What does the average 7th grader need a CAS for?

Nothing. There's not a single operation that you learn between grades 7 and 12 that requires anything more than a scientific, non-graphic calculator to perform.

Indeed, however a non-graphing calculator and a non-graphing calculator have differences, I personally would not want to live without calculation history and enter-calculation-then-calculate system (instead of the one where every symbol you press instantly applies it to the number you have on screen, I have no clue how these two are officially called). Point being that we'd end up with a certain list of allowed calculators even if they're not graphing because they're simply not the same and some are much faster and nicer to use.

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

#146

Post by singron »

jerf wrote: post #25
5trokerac3 wrote: post #4

TI calculators are the biggest technology racket in education. The fact alone that most schools won't allow the use of Casio equivalents deserves an anti-trust investigation. There are programs that even dictate which TI model is accepted.

"There are programs that even dictate which TI model is accepted." At this point in 2019, with such cheap computation, the school calculator lines are being sold as much on what they don't do as what they do. Around 1994 or 1995, I had an HP-48G calculator, a real scientific programmable calculator meant for engineers and scientists, where the rest of the class had the TI line of school calculators. The HP-48G could…

I used a TI-89 (which has a CAS) on the AP Calculus exam. I maybe used it to double check an answer, but I don't remember it being more useful than a TI-83 on that exam. You can only use calculators on part of the exam. On the calculator portion, I remember formulating each problem to be the hard part and the actual differentiation/integration was straightforward.

The SAT math is so rudimentary that it's difficult to use a calculator beyond its basic arithmetic functionality (unless it's been changed since I took it). I bet most people would get similar scores with and without calculators.

In college, calculators were never allowed in exams. They just constructed each exam problem so that you didn't need to perform arithmetic with large numbers. It does make it seem like exams were written to sell calculators...

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

#147

Post by mmcgaha »

JohnBooty wrote: post #48
jedberg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I in fact did this in high school. But now that the current high school teachers are people my age who actually grew up using the calculators, they are wise to that ploy. :)

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.

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by arthurcolle »

arthurcolle wrote: post #28

I picked up the relatively new HP Prime in the last 6 months and the ability to do 3D graphics with a touchscreen is amazing and really gives a great appreciative for the underlying functions you are plotting. Would have loved to have something like this in my advanced math classes. So much better than the pretty terrible TI series by comparison.

* appreciative => appreciation, if a mod/@dang can edit and then delete this comment. I hate typos. Thanks.

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

#150

Post by Wowfunhappy »

asperous wrote: post #124
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…

> 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 out of, maybe things will change. Apple actually supports this: "When you give a test to your students, you can lock their iPad in to an assessment app and turn off features that you don't want them to use." https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204775 I tried it just now with desmos testing…

This works if the device is supplied by the school, but you can't lock a student's personal device.
Post reply on HN