Calculators vs. PDAs in the Classroom

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?"

Comments

Re:other conflicts?

[quantaman]

In Alberta all high school students now use TI-83s (might be 83+ now). Some teachers would erease the memory before exams but I remeber one student who built a physics program that would take numbers for any formula and give you the answer. Now in university virtually everybody has these same calculators and we are allowed to use them in exams. Although I don't know of any specific circumstances I would not be surprised if someone had some programs on their calculator which gave them an "advantage" during exams. Using some cords and programs you could also hook these calculators up to your computer and get programs off the web.