Slashdot Mirror
Net Access From your TI-85
BlueCalx- writes "Affinix has just recently released an interesting program called Wireless TI - a set of utilities that lets you access a UNIX shell, IRC, or chat with another computer: all from your Texas Instruments-brand graphing calculator. You can download the utilities from ticalc.org. "
I wonder who will be the first person that gets a story on slashdot because they hosted a webpage off their TI-85.
here's a useful link to some useful information about the things.
i was gonna paraphrase, but i hear that's bad news these days ... *smirk*
Technology just keeps making easy things easier!
Got Rhinos?
Ahh yes, the ramblings of someone who had it the hard way and is now bitter that they didn't have nifty "tools" to help them out. I'll counter your argument with this. How many times have you had to take the derivitave of anything in your daily life??? (Engineer's excluded..that's understood) I've had 5 quarters of advanced calc, and more than half of it would have taken days to do without some sort of computer aid. In my courses the calc's allow students to rush past the simple things and focus more on advanced topics. No one really needs to know the mechanics of taking a derivitive. What is more important is what it means, what its graph can tell you about the function. Understanding Green's Theorm cannot be accomplished in 2 days (as it was in my course) without the use of some pretty ballsy linux machines and mathmatica. I couldn't even dream of trying to visualize any of the more advanced theorms without computer aid. The tool is not teaching us less, its allowing us to for go simpler mechanics to see the big picture.
--Should work--
So let our students be mediocre at long division. I couldn't care less. (When I need to do a complicated long division problem, I reach for the calculator -- why waste my time doing otherwise?) As long as they have been exposed to the mechanics, and (more fundamentally) how those mechanics can be applied in math and in life, who cares?
There are obvious caveats to my comments above, and this is why I partially agree with you -- teachers do need to make sure that students receive enough grounding in simple technique that they're not dependent on calculators for everything; for trivial calculations, nothing beats pen and paper. I think one ultimate goal is for the students to be able to solve any problem in the manner that is most appropriate -- clearly sometimes that will be in their heads, and just as clearly, sometimes a calculator is the way to go. Coupled with this, as I said above, is the goal of teaching the students to think in a mathematical way. Calculators obviously aren't a catch-all for accomplishing both goals, but I see no reason why they can't help you along the way.
This is a common sentiment. It is also wrong.
Math is not about being able to perform long division. Memorizing arbitrary rules for dividing numbers is not math. Punching numbers into a calculator is not math. Math is a way of thinking about problems. It is a formal system of abstraction. What are numbers? Abstractions of groups of everyday things. Three apples, three houses, three people, etc. What are variables? An abstraction of numbers.
Learning mathematics is learning how to think abstractly. There is some advantage to knowing how to do arithmetic, for example when you are shopping and need to figure out how much something will cost when it is on sale for 30% off. But arithmetic should not be the focus of math courses. Calculators take the focus away from arithmetic and put it at a higher conceptual level.
Does learning every command of x86 assembly make you a better programmer? Well, sometimes it's useful. But nowadays we have things called compilers that do all that for you. Tools don't make you dumber; they let you tackle more complicated problems. Of course calculators can be misused in the classroom, but used correctly they force the student to spend more time actually thinking.
-Nathan Whitehead
I'm surprised that given how poorly math and science scores are in this country (US, that is), that teachers still train their students in punching little buttons on the keyboard. Is that math? I know from my own experience that if you give most kids here pencil and paper and ask them to do long division, all you get in return are blank stares. No wonder the US is falling behind.
As an "educational tool", calculators have about the same educational value as school prayer: namely, none. You don't learn how to take derivatives by punching an equation into your HP48GX, and you don't learn advanced calculus by playing Tetris on your TI-86. And you don't learn anything by storing notes in your calculator's memory. So what do you learn? How to cheat? How to play games?
How about this: how to let machines do all your thinking for you. Your calculator does your math. Your word processor corrects your spelling and grammar. Pretty soon, schools will stop teaching everything but typing because computers will handle the rest. You've heard the "scare scenarios" from Bill Joy and other experts claiming that machines will replace humans. And guess what? Humans will gladly allow themselves to be conquered by machines. Why think? That's what computers are for, after all. If intelligent machines ever take over the world, it will be because no one will want to resist.
It starts with "1+1=" and ends with your death.