Calculators vs. PDAs in the Classroom

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @09:44AM from the crutches-for-the-weak-minded dept.

TheMatt writes "CNN.com is reporting about a new conflict perhaps emerging in classrooms: calculators v. PDAs. The article talks about how TI seems to be making their latest calculator more PDA-like, while PDAs are gaining TI-like functionality. A comment on current math education is this quote from the article: "When you have circles and ellipses, there is no way you'd be able to do this without a calculator," Jarvis said. "It helps us visualize what we're doing." Were the compass and geometry uninvented?"

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Re:Raising the bar - sextants by victim · 2002-06-12 10:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Among cruising sailors it is considered somewhat foolish not to pack a sextant and know how to use it. You'd hate to take a lightning strike 1000 miles from land and lose your GPS, RDF, Loran, or whatnot.

Maybe you'll be bad with the cheap sextant, but you should still get within 30 miles which will let you make landfall during daylight.