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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?

#201

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

scythe wrote: post #168
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 don’t need a graphing calculator for tests. You can handle it with a scientific calculator that has expressions. The students could just use a graphing app on their phones for class/homework and a cheaper calculator for tests.

Why does it have to support expressions? A basic scientific accumulator-based calculator is enough for numerical computation without resorting to a slide rule.

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

#202

Post by LukeShu »

JohnBooty wrote: post #46

It's a shame we've standardized on something so ancient and limited, but we'll be losing something when we give up on the standardization we've achieved. At least if we accept that basic graphing capability is crucial to high school and undergrad maths. I'm picturing a high school math teacher trying to support 20-30 kids running 20-30 different BYOD'd devices... multiplied by 5-6 periods of teaching per day. Even if…

> I'm picturing a high school math teacher trying to support 20-30 kids running 20-30 different BYOD'd devices

I don't get this fear of BYOD. It should be fine to say "these are the devices I'll support, if you'd rather use something else, that's fine, but I won't be able to help you."

(In testing situations, I do understand the fear of BYOD for devices that might provide too many capabilities.)

When I was in high school, my teachers had no problem saying

- Here is a list of the devices that are allowed on the standardized test. If you're planning on taking the test, I advise that you use one of these for the duration of the course, so that you will be comfortable with the device you use on the test.

- Here is is a list of the devices that I am familiar with, and can support. I advise that you use one of these devices, so that if you have trouble with it, I can help you. You are free to use a different device if you like, but if you have trouble with it, finding the solution is your own responsibility.

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

#203

Post by magicalhippo »

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"…

I had the same at uni, no calculator allowed at any of the non-stat classes. You had to memorize the table or rules for a few special sine/cosine values, but that was it.

Then my gf had to take some extra math classes for a program she wanted to take, and I got to help her as she had been weak at math in high-school.

At just about every problem she got all confused looking at her graphing calculator, and I'd ask "why are you looking at that thing for?"

"Well, I'm trying to find the button to compute the answer".

After a little while like that I simply took her calculator away. Took a couple of weeks but she finally got an understanding of the math. In the end it turned out she is actually quite good at math, and passed the courses with high marks.

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

#204

Post by wjmao88 »

jedberg wrote: post #17
egdod wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no ability to store notes You can still type in programs, right? I remember kids storing a bunch of notes that way.

Yes, but most test proctors make you clear the memory before the test. In fact, one of the programs my friends and I wrote was one that faked the memory clearing process. This worked because at the time the test proctors didn't really know how the calculator worked so our fake was good enough.

irrc you can have a program that stubs the clearing of memory. it displays the message but doesn't actually do it.

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

#205

Post by narrator »

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

Exam4 and other software is built so closed book exams can be taken on normal computers. This is a pretty well understood problem.

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

#206

Post by filmgirlcw »

bsamuels wrote: post #27
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".

The trick with those is you can make a TI-BASIC program that will make it look like you cleared the memory - fake empty "programs" list and all. There were a few tiny details you couldn't replicate like the highlighting animation, but they never noticed when I did it.

Yeah, that’s what I did. I also used a TI-89, which was fairly new at the time, and thus, the teachers/proctors weren’t as aware of its features and where to look for stuff that was hidden away.

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

#207

Post by RandallBrown »

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…

I had one professor that allowed us to use the Internet on tests.

They were by far the hardest tests I took in college.

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

#208

Post by madhadron »

Good riddance. There's no reason to have a graphing calculator in high school math. A four function to speed up arithmetic? A scientific so you don't have to use tables to look up values of trig functions? Fine. A graphing calculator for calculus? If you need it, you missed the point of calculus.

Plus there's no reason tests can't be set up so you don't need a calculator at all, which makes the whole discussion really simple.

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

#209

Post by walshemj »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #119
avgDev wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this. Oddly enough in a computer science class we had an old professor. He accused me of cheating. He was right. However, he physically inspected my calculator like under the cover and where batteries are lol but did not check the programs. He apologized. I did well on the test.

I'm having trouble figuring out what type of material in Computer Science would require a calculator.

Base conversions maybe for an entry level course

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

#210

Post by jointpdf »

frostburg wrote: post #6
borgel wrote: post #2

Approximately related, I find the NumWorks calculator [1] absolutely enthralling. It has a fairly beefy modern ARM Cortex M4 processor which runs an attractive GUI written in Python. And yes, you can write and run Python on the device. The hardware is very well described [2] in human terms and electrical schematics are available. Software is totally open source and the device can be easily reflashed. I'm not sure wha…

It's nice but as far as I know it doesn't have a real CAS despite its processing power.

If it runs Python, then couldn’t you use SymPy as a CAS (in addition to NumPy, seaborn, etc. for numerical computing / visualization)?

By the way, I like the idea of this calculator and hope to see more like it. I think something that combined this with ideas from WolframAlpha (natural language CAS, problem explainers and expanders) and Khan Academy (spaced repetition, gamification of learning, progression of tutorial videos, practice and diagnostic problems) would be really powerful. In fact I became temporarily obsessed with the idea of creating this sort of calculator >10 years ago when taking multivariate calculus and struggling to visualize or understand the problems. Yes, you could always use a computer/tablet/phone, but as someone who struggles with ADD, there is a lot to be said for using a constrained learning tool, so that the versatile (read: distracting) devices can be put out of sight during dedicated study time.

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