Sunday, 21 May 2017

The reign of the $100 graphing calculator required by every US math class is finally ending

quote [ It turns out there's this much easier thing called the internet. ]

The TI84 is dead; long live the TI84.
[SFW] [Big Brother] [+6 Good]
[by lilmookieesquire@6:49pmGMT]

Comments

mechavolt said @ 11:42pm GMT on 21st May [Score:2]
Also, for our AP exams, the proctors would check all of your programs to make sure that you didn't have anything that could help you cheat. I had personally coded a physics cheat program with every single formula that was on the test, where you could enter your givens and it would automatically solve for the unknown. To get by the proctors, I embedded the entire program within a racing game, and altered the racing game code to only load my cheat program if you crashed your car at a specific point in the game. I feel no shame.
Bruceski said @ 1:57am GMT on 22nd May
That seems like a lot of effort. I just 5'd the AP test naturally.
Dienes said @ 3:29am GMT on 22nd May
Yeah, at that point it seems easier and faster to actually learn the material.

Also, as a teacher, fuck cheaters.
mechavolt said @ 10:11am GMT on 22nd May [Score:1 Good]
To be fair, the amount of effort put into the coding the program gave me a mastery of the material to the point that I didn't need to use it at all.
rndmnmbr said @ 2:21am GMT on 22nd May [Score:1 Interesting]
In high school I got dragged to the principal's office and told I needed remedial algebra because I didn't know how to use a calculator. The principal set me down with fifty quadratic equations and watched me punch out solutions like clockwork by hand, then told the teacher something pretty nasty behind closed doors and put me on the other math teachers class. Fuck calculators, math should be done by hand.
Bleb said @ 1:05pm GMT on 22nd May
I can only imagine how the English department raked you over the coals about your lack of vowels.
Bleb said @ 7:21pm GMT on 21st May
TI didn't have a complete monopoly. I had a Sharp EL-9300 that got me through just fine.
lilmookieesquire said @ 8:20pm GMT on 21st May [Score:1 Underrated]
"Is Pepsi okay?"
Bleb said @ 11:22pm GMT on 21st May [Score:1 Classy Pr0n]
Fun fact: You could spell pepsi on the display by typing 15d3d in hex.
arrowhen said @ 9:45pm GMT on 21st May
Is Monopoly money OK?
badbob said @ 9:33pm GMT on 21st May
As someone who loves their TI-89 with it continuing to provide great service for over a decade and a half... this looks pretty damn slick. I didn't see a numeric solver or calculus level symbolic math so maybe TI has a year. They better find a new product because this business is dead.
arrowhen said @ 9:42pm GMT on 21st May
If only the devices running it were as reliable and long lasting as the device it emulates.
satanspenis666 said @ 12:27am GMT on 22nd May
TI-89 is amazing. I gave it away recently, to a friend's kid that was starting high school. Figured it would have a better home and I hadn't used it in a decade.
ubie said @ 9:59pm GMT on 21st May
I had a TI-82 I got in 1993? 94? Was stolen while I was taking a calc class, I failed and never looked back.
knumbknutz said @ 10:21pm GMT on 21st May
I still have mine from calculus in college Damn thing still works too
mechavolt said[2] @ 11:36pm GMT on 21st May
The TI-8X series were awesome calculators. I do have a few issues with them:

1) The cost. It's a huge expense, especially for families that don't have a lot of discretionary spending. I remember begging and pleading my parents for one, and I remember them deliberating the cost vs my academic future over the kitchen table.

2) Math classes that required it's use, but didn't use most of the functions. For something that requires a big up front investment, to only have your students use the graphing function is criminal. Is it quicker than hand graphing? Yeah, sure, but if you're only using that function making the calculator a requirement isn't justified.

3) The negative educational consequences. I lucked out and had a teacher who wouldn't let us use the calculator functions until we could prove we could do them by hand first. The other class didn't fare so well, and created a group of children who could solve problems real quick with a calculator, but had almost no insight into the actual math - how the formulas are derived, or why they work the way they do.
Menchi said @ 11:46pm GMT on 21st May
My TI-85 from '94 is still going strong. Ended up downloading a pdf of the lost manual, and eventually an emulator because I was more accustomed to its version of Basic than anything I had to program with on my PC directly.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:38pm GMT on 22nd May
I had to get a TI-82 for high school and a TI-83 for college. I haven't done math since then.

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