Slashdot Mirror
Calculator Flaw Forces Recall in Virginia
Jivecat writes "CNN is reporting that TI is recalling 11,000 calculators issued to students in Virginia because of a flaw that would give them an unfair advantage on standardized tests. A 12-year-old discovered that by pressing two keys at once, the calculators will convert decimals to fractions. The tests require the students to know how to do this with pencil-and-paper." So the calculator is being recalled because it's not crippled enough. Maybe it's a good time to question the wisdom of issuing expensive electronics to students in the first place, though I'm sure the calculator companies would rather you didn't.
Seriously, isn't this a bit of an overreation?
So what if the calculators make it easier to convert from decimal to fraction? Train *all* of the students to use the feature and its value as an advantage.
As for the issue of using a pencil and paper, then that is how you verify that they *know* how to make the conversion and didn't rely on the two-key method.
Bureaucracy masked as education.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Am I blind or does it say Texas Instruments, not HP?
I remember (back in the day - mid 80s) asking a teacher why we weren't allowed to use calcluators at all. He replied that this was to train our minds so we could do these things ourselves without aid.
Someone else asked "So WTF is with these log books?". He got detention.
Teachers... you've got to love them. Well, someone does.
I am a leaf on the wind
Now even the moderators have stopped reading the articles.
yay!
Umm... so when is HP = TI?
Or am I blind here?
All I got when I first clicked on this was 'Nothing to see here. Move along'. Something about that just doesn't [B]add[/B] up.
Seriously though, I've been against giving calculators to grade school kids for a long time. It's all part of the dumbing down of our society. Let them learn how to do math properly, [I]then[/I] teach them how to use a calculator when they start studying higher maths that actually need one.
As I understand from the article, this calculater is aimed at these school kids, so if HP wants schools to actively assist in the marketing for these things, they'd better cooperate. Speaking of which, can't they design calculators to be a bit more.. well.. "hip", e.g. like an ipod?
see a Text Widget
A 12-year-old discovered that by pressing two keys at once, the calculators will convert decimals to fractions.
:/
You sure it is a flaw? Sounds more like a hidden function by a bored programmer to me. Also, what's wrong with the fraction function? My Casio FX-260 S Calculator that I used in ~grade also has a fraction function. No one ever complain about that
with not issuing calculators to students until they arrive to high school level. American students fair very poory in math compared to European students and asians. Finland and Japan routinely do the best at math compared to other countries.
00001110001110101010101110010-ed. Pft.
I didn't see HP mentioned in the article. Only Texas Instruments.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
reomvee selplechck form miosrocft wrod
...if they have to do know how to do it by hand, why do they even have a calculator available during the test. back in the olden days (90's) we had to take an exam w/o calculators to prove compentency before we could use them in class.
always mosh clockwise
It's not HP. It's TI. Maybe you should find one of those calculators and see if you can get them to read articles for you.
What's a sig? Pete Brubaker
I used to press all the keys at once on my texas calculator. This made it to simply shut down, what's that for a cool hack huh?
Buffert overflow?
Now where's my graphing calculator.
Actually, it is TI, not HP.
.. if only they had used the original TI-30
And they are recalling 160,000 calculators, not 11,000.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Why do they even allow the use of electronics on those tests? Dump the electronics and focus on testing the real skills.
If you have the skills, then using a calculator makes you faster.
If all you have is the knowledge of where the key to press is, then you won't be able to check your work.
I still remember back in the early eighties when the calculator watches hit the scene. Teachers hated them! Almost as much as the souped up stompers....
anyone else here hook a 9v battery to a stomper way back when? they even have stompers anymore?
Old world: recall the calculators!
New world (to which I subscribe): recall the fucking tests!
that fat fingered 12 yr old should have kept his mouth shut. ruined for anyone else who knew but was smart enough to keep it to themself. seriously though, who is buying calculators for kids learning basic math? pretty soon, the answer to all math problems will be "press the #s on the phone that dail your favorite geek". at least that's what my fiance does.
As a student who was allowed to use a calculator from the sixth grade forward, I found that my ability to do simple arithmetic in my head was very much diminished. While I could do derivations and other logical functions mentally quickly, when it came to adding two-digit numbers in my head, I still struggle and use my fingers.
This even makes my current career a pain in the ass as i have to subnet every single day.
Students should be forced to use slide rules and pen and paper. There is no educational advantage to allowing them to use calculators.
/. News says: Maybe it's a good time to question the wisdom of issuing expensive electronics to students in the first place, though I'm sure the calculator companies would rather you didn't.
Well, maybe it's time to reconsider if students need pencil-and-paper in a techno age that even a mobil phone has a calculator.
Why not show them what they can achieve with the calculator rather than how to achieve what the calculator does?
My TI-85 was converting decimals to fractions over 10 years ago... Why is this news?
1) Have a portion of the test allow calculator use, and a portion of the test not allow calculator use.
2) Make sure the fraction stage was in correct part of the test.
3) Ummm... Privatize?
(By the way, TFA says TI, not HP.)
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Yeah, that'll help him learn the fraction function. I would've loved it too though. I have a plain vanilla (or chocolate? It is black) TI-83, and I would not mind trying one of those TI-89s or whatever's the newest one now.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Why alow calculators ontests at all? if you cant do the basic stuff with ease, you should not be in an algebra-type class, and if you show your work there is little chance to make a +-/ or * mistake as they are easy to see. And besides, if a kid did use this on a test how is it cheating because they were allowed to use the device which means all functions thereof including eastereggs.
if you press 3 keys at once on a ti, the 4th key is thought of as being pressed as well, where the 4th key completes a rectangle on the calculator key grid. This is a similar thing, just less keys required because in the corner
I think it is perfectly acceptable to require students to have a level of mental arithmetic ability - it is the first check that you've done something stupid when using a calculator or computer or whatever. However, if the point is to test students mental abilities then write the test so that it don't include sections that require calculators to complete and make sure it can all be done using mental arithmetic (or pen and paper arithmetic as the case may be - being a first step towards mental arithmetic).
I see minimal benefit in testing whether someone can use a calculator properly. It's about as useful as testing that someone can use Word. These are not the skills that are going to get you a job or even add to your education. They are dead end tasks that only ever fulfil a supporting role in whatever it is that you are doing. There are better things to be teaching student and they already have too many things they are required to learn.
They were $8.00 each.
Seriously, what motivation is there to return a device in exchange for one with less functionality? How do they expect this "recall" to work? Would any of you send your calculator back?
just asking
A goal is a dream with a deadline
It sounds like an undisclosed feature, not a flaw.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
Why in the fuck would someone return anything because it worked too well?
It reminds me of that 200 mpg car urban legend.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The education system in some places is pure crap.
In my junior high/high school years(7-12) We rarely got to use calculators. Even in our pre-calculus course, if we got caught using a calculator during a test, exam or inclass assignment we were as good as failed.
This wasn't decades ago, I graduated 2002.
People shouldnt rely on calculators to do simple math like fractions.
I found back in middle school that you could do some strange stuff with the solar TI calculators if you starved them of light until they almost shut off, and then uncover the solar panels (works best while the calculator is busy computing 69!). Most of the time, the calculator would lock up with garbage on the display or simply shut off. But sometimes it would come back - but with the layout of a simular model (like the TI-30 would suddenly be a TI-30 STAT). Other times, it would enter modes not found on the TI-30, like octal mode (present on the TI-36).
Yeah, I was pretty bored back then.
Duh? Isn't that on almost every TI calculator? O.o
Why are we giving kids calculators for math exams? If you need to use a calculator in order to prevent people from making simple mistakes in a calculation, you either need to provide simpler numeric values or allow kids to specify non-numerical results.
The state is issuing calculators? Man, I need to move to Virginia and enroll in grade 6. This is a much better calculator than my current one.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
They also fare very poorly at English.
...will it show me its hidden pr0n?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Despite having an expensive TI-89 in college, I had to buy a cheapo four-function calculator for a class in collge. Why? We were given the choice, and if we used good calculators the tests would be much, much harder.
So, if I can do college-level engineering without a fancy calculator, wtf do these kids need them for? If you don't learn what you're doing before punching things into a calculator, you'll never understand what's going on. Calculators should not be allowed at all for standardized tests until the kids are tested on concepts more complicated than what a calculator can do for them.
It was on mine, and I milked that for all it was worth. That function was one of the main reasons I got mine.
On a similar note, Microsoft will be recalling 3 billion instances of RedHat from the market. Apparently all you have to install it, and the secret "doesn't crash or get hacked" function starts working, giving administrators an unfair advantage over other administrators.
It is suspected that Microsoft may make other recalls in light of this recent events, including the Playstation 2, Google's search engine, and the United States government.
In other news, any of you that have hot girlfriends (yeah...you're probably not real, but I can pretend) will have to hand them over. I'm recalling them.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
about programmable graphing calculators that can be programmed to hold ALL your semester's geometric and algebraic functions and generate an accurate graph without having to plot points? That's how I breezed through those classes in `91-92. Now my poor Casio 3000FXGA sits with three dead batteries :^(
If we're lucky, perhaps this sort of problem will inspire someone to take a look at exactly how tech is used in the classroom. Giving kids calculators and computers and etc. seems like a good idea. However, while it is important that kids learn how to use technology, it's much more important that they can do these things without it.
When I was in school, I remember thinking how cool it was that I could use a calculator in 9th grade math. Then after trying to use one, not only did I find that I could do it faster without it, but that I learned the math better. I carried that attitude through calculus, and I'm very glad that I did.
Now we have a generation of kids that can't do basic math, can't spell, and don't know grammer. What a great help that tech has been for them in school! All the teaching aids in the world don't turn a bad teacher into someone that can educate your children. Don't let elementary school kids write papers on the computer, they don't get handwriting, spelling, or grammer practice. They just learn the computer will fix it for them. Don't let them use calculators for their math, because they just learn that calculators will do math for them, so they don't need to know it.
There is a proper way to use these things in the classroom. A word processor in English class is wrong, just as a calculator is in basic math class. Once you get to a Lit class or advanced math, the tools are useful in teaching more effectively.
Also, Someone mentioned log books in another post as being a shortcut tool. So are sliderules, but try doing logs sanely without one or the other. What you learned to use logs for was a shortcut to doing long-hand division and multiplications... after you learned how to do that math anyway.
The actual electronics of a ti-89 will fit perfectly well in a ti-83+ case (at least this worked with the old black models, I don't know about the new translucent ones). You have to re-learn what some of the keys are, since the labels will be off, but overall, it's an easy way to sneak the most powerful calculator available into standardized tests that ban it. It's not too difficult to write an assembler program that emulates the ti-83 home screen on the ti-89, if you are extra paranoid. I wonder if I could profitably sell a couple of these cheater calculators on ebay?
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Personally, I think that allowing kids to use calculators as much as we do is pathetic. There's a lot to be said for focus on mental technique.
Not long ago I was talking to my Grandma who expressed total disgust at a cashier who couldn't figure out that there'd been an addition mistake. Grandma could calculate the number in her head, but the cashier basically said, "The machine says ...".
Calculators are a tool, not a crutch. If the students are doing too many calculations on a test so that they're necessary, I say revise the tests to allow time for mental or manual calculations and give them some scrap paper!
flaw in the headline should have been written as "flaw" in my opinion, because what they are talking about is not a flaw as such. It is a "flaw." See the difference?
There is this fine girl in my math class who always comes over and expects me to do her math homework. Any advice on how to get her to have sex with me?
Thanks.
Basically, given a fractional value between 0 and 1, find two integers whose ratio most closely approximates the fractional value, and which will fit in a given bit width. This sort of thing is useful when trying to compute the integer coefficients to stuff into the registers of a PLL clock generator.
For a 10-bit range, you can just do a brute-force search (which is what I did), but for anything wider than 20 bits or so, it'd be nice to have an algorithm that converges on a solution quickly. If ever I was taught this in math class, it fell out of my brain long ago. Now I find out a TI calculator will apparently just do it.
So how's it done?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Unless it's applied, most higher math doesn't require a calculator (at least the Calculus/Diff Eq. I've taken). Calculators belong in science class, not in math class (unless you want to teach kids how to program on them, which is what I spent most of math class doing).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Hurray for that. Because in the future, no one will have access to electronic tools to perform math calculations! You know what? Since graduating from college and doing professional programming, I've used math beyond algebra a total of zero times, and all that calculus I toiled so hard over? Completely useless. But I do know how to use my calculator still. And the very few professions that actually do use advanced mathematics... do you think they do the work by hand? No, they do it on a computer or calculator. Sorry, but institutionalized math instruction is largely useless at higher levels to most people and is an end only to itself, taught because of artificial importance placed upon it by people with bias, who are so anachronistic they can't even accept the fact technology has made most of their instruction obsolete.
You know there is a kid out there that will figure out how to reconnect the disabled buttons, or swap the logic board from a regular 30xa into the case of the special version. Instant fraction satisfaction.
In my undergraduate electromagnetics class, the professor was adamant that he would never allow calculators on his exams, but he'd generiously allow anyone to use a slide rule (assuming we could find them and learn how to operate them).
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
My calculator can solve that equation. Would you say this a bad thing?
I would like to kick the person who is in charge of Texas Instruments calculators in the genitals repeatedly. These damned things haven't increased in processing power, display or anything to warrant the price that they get for these damned things. They do the same thing they did 10 years ago and they haven't dropped in price.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
It's an impressive school system if the math problems given to kids 14 years are so difficult that you need a calculator for it.
I didn't need one (nor get one) until I was thought physics and chemistry where they have all these weird kind of not-so-easy-to-add/substract/multiply/divide values.
bash$
You mean he wasn't charged with violating the DMCA and arrested for hacking?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'd rather hire someone who knows how to convert decimals to fractions and how to use a calculator than a kid who depends on the calculator.
If tests allow calculators, all they test is the financial ability of students to buy calculators.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I have a graphing calculator (a ti-83 plus) and my teacher banned me from using it for tests or games in class because I made a super program that covered everything I had learned that year and made calculating things simple and quick (for things like area and law of sines). It had all the formulas and everything. Luckily, I was able to use it on standardized tests;) By the end of the year, the program almost didn't fit into memory. (it is 18 KB on a calculator with only 24KB of RAM (it will only run in RAM)). I also made a few games and even a virus (if you would even call it a virus. pressing ON quits any BASIC program). All of this was done in TI-BASIC, which can only be programed on the calculator. I gave this program to someone and the the teacher found out, he got in a lot of trouble for cheating.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now we're saying, "that's not a feature, it's a bug."
Remember, useless wonkiness == feature, useful function == bug. The goal is to make it not work any way you'd expect or want but instead the way some suit said it should.
No problem for me. I never got to use calculators in school, we were taught to calculate pi via interpolation on paper with pencils (not pens) to eight decimal places, taught to do trig to five places on paper, etc. In machining, old timers still tend to use paper and pencil and recheck their figures with, not a calculator, but someone else using a paper and pencil.
Besides, when I do use a calc, I only use Casios.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
The calculator shown in TFA looks a lot like the TI30XA. It's listed on Amazon at $10. And you can bet the school district got a volume discount. So expensive? Hardly.
Misinformed editorialism aside, I tthink it's great that they're giving middle school kids calculators. By that time they should (emphasis on "should") be well practiced at doing arithmetic by hand. They should be moving on to more difficult, abstract problems (actual problems as opposed to simple arithmetic drills). Why have them be hung up on simple arithmetic when they should be concentrating on the abstract problem solving aspect. If used properly, calculators can be a big help to education, not a hindrance.
Maybe Slashdot should stick to reporting news, and leave the editorialism to us professionals.
Stupid like a fox!
Now, even with my calculator back, I refrain from using it even for the more advanced calculations whenever I can help it. I can honestly say that it has had a profound positive effect on my gpa, and on my understanding of the math/physics topics that were taught to us. Ive gone on to the Physics and Math finals and scored in the top 10 rankings in my province and top 50 in Canada. Interestingly enough, the 3 other students in my school that also are up in the rankings do not use calculators for most problems like myself.
and the goal of an education is to teach students how to use the resources available to them as much as anything. The big difference between college and primary/secondary school is that college focuses less on the memorization and more on the knowing how to find the answers. I am absolutely terrible at memorizing things, especially obscure facts, but I'm excellent with concepts and research. And in my experience, these are far more valuable skills. Sure a person should understand what a fractional number represents, and if they understand the concept, converting from decimal to fraction or fraction to decimal is simple, using a calculator or not. I would argue that they should have a series of questions about the concept of converting in addition to actual applications. And that goes for all topics! Who cares what date the A-Bombs were dropped, does the student know the ramifications and importance of such an event, that's whats important!
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Hey asswipe moderator. Look at my timestamp. When I posted my comment, there WERE NO OTHER POSTINGS. We all posted the same comment at the same time. Why don't you mod down everyone else too? Prick.
"Population 1,656"
Kids need to know how to do basic arithmetics by hand, true. But as someone who used to tutor highschool kids in maths, I was apalled to discover how few knew how to use their calculators effectively. Because they had never been taught (or figured out for themselves) how to do more than one simple operation at a time, the kids I was tutoring were taking three times as long on the basic sums as they needed to, and introducing more typo level errors along the way. This meant that they made more mistakes, believed themselves to be worse at maths in comparison to their peers than they really were, and spent less time on the maths they were supposed to be practising and more time punching buttons on their calulators.
Of course, they could have done all the arithmetic by hand, but then they'd have had even less time to learn real maths.
I am 53 years old and I grew up in Croatia. We did not use any calculators in school and thus we all became well versed in hand and mental computations. The only computing tools we used were slide rules and tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions in the 10th grade, and this only for about a month as aids while learning about triangulation and numerical computation.
Test teenagers today and you will see that almost nobody is able to compute a square root by hand and many of them do not even know how to multiply or divide by hand!
Obviously this child is an evil hacker and should be prosecuted immediately under the DMCA. He circumvented the security of their debugging mode!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or we could just sidestep the whole issue and do something reasonable like, I don't know, have them SHOW THEIR WORK. Call me crazy, but if you are grading them on a certain process, score them on that process, so you know they know what they are doing.
I have to agree with the parent. Calculators are useful, but they can quite easily also turn into a crutch.
.3010, .4771, .6020, .6989... and no, I didn't look those up in a calculator :).
I studied in the Indian CBSE and AISSE system of education. We weren't allowed any calculators at all, for any subject. We had to use Log (logarithm) tables. Essentially we would convert any problem into base 10 log and then solve it from there. It was supposed to be "easier" because multiplication and division change into addition and subtraction. Exponentiation just becomes division.
Sure, I hated it at the time. It was a total bitch to do anything, but as a result, I got really good at my arithmetic. Even today I can remember the log base 10 values for 2, 3, 4, and 5...
Even in university, I had friends who had the TI-92 which could do symbolic integration. I had a lowly Casio model. I didn't mind, because I understood calculus and did everything by hand.
Basically, learning to do things by hand is a good skill to have. So you don't rely on a calculator where things happen "magically". Of course, when there's a time crunch, a powerful calculator helps, but it's still nice to know how things work under the hood.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I had a calculator that did this, and thats how I passed grade 9 and ten math.
Parents take away those calculators!!
I meant "exponentiation becomes multiplication".
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I TA college mathematics courses and it is quite clear that by the time students are in college they are convinced mathematics is just about blindly memorizing algorithmic routines. Nothing could be further from the case and I don't think it is a coincedence that many math grad students are horribly doing arithmetic. I for one almost failed 2nd grade because I couldn't do my multiplication tables fast and accurately enough (I thought it was a waste of time to memorize this stuff and I was right)
Learning to do things *efficently* by hand (as you would in a standardized test) does not really give understanding. Instead the students should be asked to reason about the process of changing decimals into fractions or heck just teach them basic logic instead. Spending time drilling algorithms into their heads that they can always just turn to calculators to do anyway is a real waste of time and turns kids off math and science.
Besides, knowledge of the algorithm is easy once you have understanding. However, not only does this empahsis on rote learning waste time it actually seems to give kids a mental block to real understanding. By the time these kids reach college they expect that courses (or at least math courses) will be just rote learning. Not only do they expect it but they will flounder if this safe pattern is broken making it nearly impossible to teach anything but rote facts. Indeed the students will usually prefer a huge amount of memorization to something requiring real understanding.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
allow calculators in school when a slide rule is good enough? It's even graphical...kinda.
What?
LOL
w00t
I'm a Chesterfield native, and am familiar with these calculators, since I know kids who use them. Those particular calcs are only issued for SOLs (the local flavor of standardized test) and when a student forgets to bring his/her own. The point is to be dumbed down to four function & square roots so that you don't get to use higher functions on the Big Test, but other than that, you can use whatever you want. Since one of the goals is to make you do things like conversion on paper/in your head, that is purposefully excluded. (The point is not to see if a Middle Schooler can add, hopefully they wouldn't have gotten this far without that particular ability.) So, yes, even though this seems very silly (as do the tests) there is a reason why this is a problem.
From the article, it appears TI was told to disable the function, but instead, only remapped to an odd set of key strokes and left in as an Easter Egg.
Vote for Pedro
Just give the teachers some chalk and they can teach. Technology makes school more fun, but it gets in the way of teaching.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
Why don't they do what i regularly saw in maths papers at GCSE? Add the words "Show your working" to the question. If you don't show the working, you don't get the marks. Infact in my FP1 A-Level exam yesterday the question asked you to "Calculate the square root of the complex number 20-21i using an algebraic method". My calculator can do that easily, i don't get any of the marks if i write the answer down straight.
Alternatively, have two papers like you also get at GCSE, a calculator paper and a non calculator. The first, testing whether you are able to use a calculator properly, effectively and accurately. The second, testing whether you know what to do, how to do it and the method / reasoning behind it.
until middleschool, imho Learn that shit, write that shit, calculate that shit, in chronological order until middleschool
Who remembers the sheer disappointment of having the teacher come by and clear the memory on your calculator after you had spent countless hours programming in the formulas on your text/program editor?
Who also remembers writing a fake clear memory program to fool the teacher the next time around?
And who gave most everyone in the class a copy of this program?
I never did. Shame on all of you.
are you kidding? This gets an insightful? You're against giving calculators to kids? A math test should be well thought out. It should be structured to test concepts, not how quickly someone can convert fractions to decimals or backwards. Give the kids fraction to decimal conversions for homework.
On the test, ask a question like: If you have x/y, how would you convert this to a decimal... Or give them a repeating decimal that goes beyond the precision of the calculator and ask them to tell you what the repetition is. Really, there's millions of other ways to test the CONCEPT.
It completely shocks me that this slashdot crowd, one that is supposed to be smart, makes and regards with high oppinion such comments as the one I'm responding to. Mathematic miseducation in this country reaches way deeper than I thought.
I am a firm believer in equality in education. The best way to do this is to hobble the courses and punish students for thinking too far a head of their class.
When you have calculators with advanced features, you will undoubtedly have some students who start thinking outside of the planned curriculum...resulting in even greater inequality.
Inequality in school leads to inequality in the workplace. Statistics show that people know more make more. Only by working to prevent unequal education can we hope to have a society where everybody is the same. There are many NEA members working feverishly to prevent excessive education. Please support equal education...support the NEA. United we can prevent unequal education.
Hey asswipe moderator. Look at my timestamp. When I posted my comment, there WERE NO OTHER POSTINGS. We all posted the same comment at the same time. Why don't you mod down everyone else too? Prick.
Aw, it's okay, honey. Do you want a hug?
The wisdom is that in reality people use calculators, so there is little point in testing them in things they are not going to use.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Isn't this the reason students are meant to show working? So they have to use the thought process they're taught. (as well as it being good practice)
Paste!
Enter the decimal fraction on the calculator. Press '+' repeatedly until you reach a whole number. The fraction will be that whole number divided by the number of times you pressed the '+' function.
It says that the model involved was a TI 30Xa SE VA. I used to have a vanilla TI 30Xa, and it did have a function to convert between the two. I have a feeling that TI 'forgot' to remove the functionality, and just removed the label on the button.
Surely a test is supposed to test if the students understood something. The best way of doing this is to give marks for showing the working to the problem as well as (or instead of) for getting the right answer.
After that, who cares if they use calculators or not. In fact, I'd prefer it, since it gives them a chance to double check their answer and correct their process. A good habit to get into, anyway.
I don't understand why they were allowed to use a calculator AT ALL on standardized tests. Anyway, if they take you down to a bask 4-6 banger(Division, Addition, Multiplication, Subtraction, Square Roots), here's a MASSIVE hint on how to convert fractions to decimal... just divide the fractions and do all the work in decimal, if the answer is in a fraction, divide the fraction in the mutiple choice and find YOUR answer. I hate fractions.....it's the old way of writing things down and I never use them any more. Expecially since the stock indexes are all in decimal now. No needs to figure out that when something is down an eighth it's down 0.13 cents.
Gorkman
.. Especially the ones without large LCD graphing displays. My trusty beast could handle at least first year chem and physics formulae.. And you didn't have the TAs refusing or confiscating them like they might some of the more advanced (and waay more expensive) HPs.. And no RPN ;)
Plus, you could get them at Service Merchandise (and possibly Consumers Distributing), which were the only places my folks bought consumer electronics back in the day...
(and for all you hatas out there, Casio _did_ have a more powerful programmable, but IIRC it was also way more expensive at the time..)
Then the instructor pointed out that the metric measurements made all math straight decimal calculations, making fractions obsolete. Instead of being tormented by numerators and denominators for the bulk of our elementary school careers, she figured we'd instead have been given a few weeks onfractions, if that. When she took a second show of hands, the number of converts (including me, who had not had a preference either way) was impressive.
Moral: If the U.S. public had accepted the metric system, fractions would be a mathematical footnote for most American students, who could concentrate on more important things like GTA.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
When I was learning maths as school, only about 30% of the mark for any given question came from getting the correct answer. The other 70 percent came from showing that you understood the process of arriving at that answer. So if you showed your intermediate steps, made a stupid mistake and forgot to carry the one, you would get 7/10. If all you wrote was the correct answer, with no other calculations, you got 3/10. Whether you used a calculator or not was irrelevant. I did use the calculator, but only to check that my mental calculation was correct.
Any number can be converted to a fraction simply by putting that number over some power of ten.
Convert 0.934 to a fraction? Easy, it's 934/1000.
Convert 934.567 to a fraction? Easy, it's 934567/1000.
So long as you know your decimal places (tenths, hundredths, thousandths, etc), then you can convert any decimal number to a fraction. After that, it's just a matter of simplifying.
If you need a calculator to convert from decimal to fraction, you should not have been allowed to graduate from an elementary school.
Reporters are such morons.
Why don't they say what buttons to press? Either the reporter:
1) Doesn't know what buttons to press, didn't wonder about it and didn't test it.
2) Thinks it should be kept a secret.
3) Thinks it's too complicated for CNN readership.
All of those reasons are pretty disrespectful for the readership. CNN is like porridge. It's fine for when you just wake up but there's nothing you can sink your teeth into.
these aren't regular models, they are specifically made to give the students access to only what is allowed on the test. TI goofed.
and c'mon... $10 is "expensive electronics?" It's not like they have the 3D graphic calculators with the gameboy emulator.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Calculators are just one more needless expense. When I started college over a decade ago, no math classes REQUIRED calculators. The next year, all the math classes required them, and the bookstore was filled with TI-89's (I think they were 89's, I know they were texas instruments).
A friend I knew form highschool has a HP-48gx that he loved. He used it in chem and all his classes. So he signs up for a calculus class that requires a calculator, and the first day the teacher checks that everyone had a calculator. Because he did not have the TI-89, he was told that he could not come to the next class until he purchased the TI.
This reminds me of something else my college did. My first year there, different vending machines had different soda's, some had coca-cola, others had pepsi. My second year back, all the machines had just pepsi, it was impossible to buy any coca-cola product on campus.
Then it dawned on me, what really happened. The faculty, my first year there, went on strike for a short time over tenure and salaries. The high end of the spectrum paid teachers with a PhD and over 10 years teaching over $95,000 a year. I believe the starting salary was $38,000 per year with a masters degree (it is a community college). They wanted $120,000 for the high end, and gaurenteed tenure after 4 years teaching. The teachers got what they wanted.
Oh, tuition went from $18 a quarter hour to $21 an hour that summer, along with a $1 per quarter hour "capital assesment fee" and a $1 per quarter hour "instruction fee". That made tuition $23 an hour, up from $18. Neither of those two extra charges were explained, except they were temporary. It has been over 10 years, and the school added a few more of them since then. And I hear the teachers are talking strike again.
And here is what gets me. Schools are public institutions, created to serve the public. How the hell did the teachers railroad the community into paying outrageous salaries, how did corporations get a monopoly for selling their products (like only pepsi and no coca-cola), and at prices twice as high as off campus?? Granted, this was a community college, and everyone drove there, but if someone wanted to protest the $1.30 can of pepsi and drive down the road to buy a $0.75 can of coca-cola, they would lose their parking place.
What is next, will universities sell their naming rights? Will Ohio State University be renamed to Sprint PCS presents Ohio State University??
It is too bad. Students have ZERO power to do anything. Students rarely stay long enough, and even if a student does not enroll out of protest, the student is only hurting their earning power. Furthermore, there will be other students the university can accept.
It is a damn shame that education has boiled down to money. I would love to see "free" universities, where people who love a subject give classes. How many 60ish year old retired engineers are there that would love to teach math part time, just because they love it? Why has academia attracted people who want to make lots of money?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Instead of giving children calculators and then wondering why nobody can figure out any math, why not go back to the good ol' way of teaching math, the way it's been done for 3000 years, and let the kids do the math in their head, or with pencil and paper, or some such thing?
Mandatory political comment: liberals, leftists, and democrats are undoubtedly horrified at this idea. Interestingly, these are the same parties that often say we need more money for education, more televisions and computers, more books with more colorful pictures, and of course, we have to make sure that everything is politically correct, because these children's minds have to be stuffed into a tiny box. But this is the causation fallacy: The amount of money spent on education and related stuff has nothing to do with the output, meaning, educated children. That is why the U.S. now has an enormous problem with a lack of science, engineering, and math skills. Nobody can spell worth a damn. Nobody understands the rules of grammar. Of course, everybody is an expert in "social sciences", meaning things like political correctness, how to put condoms on bananas, that sort of thing.
The point? There are schools where children sit in a circle outside on the ground and the teacher has one decrepid book to go around for everybody, and those students turn out a lot more educated. And there are schools that perpetually and eternally need "more money for education" so they can turn out increasingly worse-off students.
This case of the extra calculator function is only one example in a line of examples. Simply ban those calculators from tests and homework assignments, and you'll see that when children actually have to use their brains, they will be a lot better off.
You don't have to believe a word I said here. But please pay attention to what's going on around you, and note that much of the media (television, newspapers, movies, the pop culture) has a leftist bias. Also please note that in the time and space of a Slashdot post, I cannot make this information in the quality of a research paper, so don't ask me for sources. Just open your eyes, look around, and ask yourself, "Is this right?" Then ask yourself why we constantly need "more money for education" and why our children need calculators in the first place. Now flame away.
Was that most of my teachers who insisted on no or minimal calculator use were unable to differentiate between the two. In elementary school I did an awful lot of converting decimals to fractions. However it wasn't trying to learn the common ones, it was arbitrary numbers the teacher picked. Some happened to be prime so you'd get something silly that would probably never be expressed as a fraction. I mean who is going to convert .443 to 443/1000?, it's not any clearer.
Got a similar thing in trig, we were required to do operations using sines and cosines without a calculator. Now this would be fine if it was the 90 degree incriments, or maybe 30 or something but it wasn't. It was doing arbitrary ones with a lookup graph. Errr, ok, what's the value of that? You can memorize common ones, espically the 90 degree incriments and it can help make sense of a lot of things. However I'm not going to remeber even an gross approximation for 14 degrees because I just don't need to.
That is the real problem I think is that many math teachers aren't very good at math. I don't mean that they can't do basic math, I mean they don't really understand math. A teacher should ideally have a full understanding of what they teaching, only then can they really understand what is and isn't important to try and impart on those that are studying it only in passing.
My best math teacher was like this, he was a mathemitician before he was a teacher and taught precalc at the community college. I ended up having to take that rather than the normal highschool precalc course because of a conflict in schedule. Now the funny thing was his tests were open book, open note, calculators allowed. However despite that, I learned more in that math class than in any other. He really understood math, adn could explain something to you in different ways, and demonstrate it in different ways until you truly understood it.
I think too much blame is heaped on calculators. People like to foggily remember a past where there were no calculators, and everyone was good at math. Turns out that wasn't so much the case. There were still plenty of students that did poorly and, funny thing, the levels of math being taught weren't as advanced.
So the solution isn't to ban calculators and just do lots of tedious calculations on paper, the solution is to keep the calculators and use them as tools to teach math. Not teach how to crank away on numbers, teach a real understanding of math. Don't teach kids how to factor polynomials, teach them WHY you factor polynomials, what you are actually doing, what the equations mean. Get them to the level of real understanding where they can be presented with a novel problem and apply their knowledge to solve it.
We don't need good little calculators. As good a calculator as you can teach a person to be, I can get a better calculator out of a machine. What we need are people who understand what math is about who can take it and apply it to problems, using the calculators to do the grunt work. If you can take an equation and integrate it by hand, I'm not impressed. My TI-89 can do that and faster than you. However if you can look at an irregular container and use calculus to figure out how to make a container of that irregular shape hold a certian volume with the aid of a calculator, then I'm impressed.
What is on a sixth grade standardized test standardized test that requires the functions on a TI-30? Why wouldn't a four function calculator (at half the cost)suffice? It wasn't until Algebra I (seventh and eighth grade, ugh) that I needed something like it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We want them to discover new and exciting things when they grow up right? But inorder to do that they need to learn what we have already discovered.
20 years ago. It was possible for a single person to be awarded the Nobel Prize. Nowadays its won by a group.
There is already a tremendous learning curve required before you can contribute to research. Why do we want to lengthen the time by asking kids to do silly problems when they could be taught much more. Learn them how to use a calculator. Use this opportunity to teach them the concepts on how a computer does additon, multiplication, binary arithmetic etc., instead of wasting time mechanically doing the sums in their heads.
The idea of spending time doing something the hard way is total BS. If this was true then why doesn't everybody still program in assembly then?
Oh no! I just took the SATs and I used a calculator that does the same thing! Please don't rat on me to Collegeboard.com
"His fellow students were so proud of him and congratulatory. They thought it was really, really cool. They didn't call him a nerd or anything," said Michael Bolling, a school official in Chesterfield County.
I don't see any reason students shouldn't be allowed to use calculators in junior high and onwards.
The only reason I think calculators shouldn't be allowed in earlier grades is because students need to learn to approximate answers:
For example, I have no problem with someone who wants to type 312 * 3 into a calculator, even though it's trivial to do in one's head. But if they see 9360 show up as the answer, they should immediately realize they made a typo because it's so far off, and I don't think most people have that skill. But maybe I'm just jaded because I hate people generally.
Am I the only one here who saw this as another twisted hacking story?
The kid discovered that by pressing two keys at once he was able to trigger a function which had been intentionally removed from the key matrix. How is this any different than any other sort of frowned-upon reverse engineering? Sure he was "only 12" so maybe it's "cute" and "using his head", but what happens when he turns 18 and discovers that he can use a Sharpie on a CD, or a hex-editor on an application? Suddenly he is no longer a hero, but a villan... I mean for *$%^-sake, TI actually sent him a graphing calculator for free... When was they last time TI sent the Linux/BSD wireless chipset hackers a free Prism dev kit Hell, even just the fscking manual would be nice.
It's this double standard $%^& that really irks me.
.. because scientific calculators are SO expensive.
Well, even if they fix the flaw, moat standardized tests give you series of multiple choice answers so you can color in a dot and a machine can grade it. so, rather than actually do the math, all you have to do is check all the choices and pick the right one - in fat, they may be faster than actually doing the math; that's why some GMAT prep books recommend it (at least they did with the old paper tests). The answers were even in numerical order, so yo did the middle choice, then went up or down depending on the result (like a half interval search). The problem is not in the calculator, it's in the test format.
One problem with calculators is that students believe the results and never bother to see if they make sense. I graded papers for an engineering class, I was amazed how many students thought because you get 8 digits in the calculator that the result is that precise; or would get impossible answers (because of a math error) and write them down. They never developed a sense about the calculation, couldn't estimate to check results and relied on the calculator for the answer. You see this in the inability to give change if you add a coin to the payment amount after they've rung it up; or when they try to give you your twenty back along with 17 dollars because they entered 50 instead of twenty for cash tendered.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
IAAMT (I am a maths teacher); calculators are great in that they can allow students to focus on the greater, more abstract concepts rather than the boring drudgery of computation. Sure, there are times when you need mental arithmetic, but really, how often do you need to divide 2314595 by 14 in real life? And even then, you are probably going to have a mobile phone with you to help. Here in oz, we are currently introducing CAS calculators (Comptuer Algebra Systems) which solve equations, differentiate, integrate, graph, and so on. The research that has been done on these is that students who don't know what they're doing still don't know what they're doing; the students who do get there faster and easier, and can learn more.
The main issue that a lot of teachers have with such technology is that it requires a complete shift in teaching and assessment - no longer is a right/wrong answer acceptable - they have to move to more exploratory problems, which require more work on the part of the teacher.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
I'd rather them learn how to overlock their TI-89's for college. God knows any engineering student will appreciate it, most intimately. Mods are also available for 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, and 92's. Many professors still will not allow the 92 on tests, which still makes the 89 your best buy.
Burn down your TI-89 with some fairly minor soldering skillz!
You can even use a little arctic silver and a couple drops of superglue, and attach a flat heatsink (it doesn't really need it, though). You'll want rechargable batteries, and I always carried around an extra set with me.
I was forced into a computerized math class in the 9th grade and subsequently failed (had to take twice) math 10 and only barley passed math 20 and 30 (grades 11 and 12) I wholy blame technology. The teacher used it as a way to foist of responsability and sit back and play solitair and tell students to do it over if they didn't get it.
Then I was in what's called Pure math for 10 and 20 (that's academic math) and buying a TI-83 was mandatory which first of all ways way expensive and 2nd of all allowed me to program my way out of any mathmatical hole. Now I'm hobbled and can't do most higher math on paper when I have to and I then turn to my trusty Python interpriter to do it. It's a bugger really.
I truley blame technology
tho not for my bad spelling
Is there a law saying you can't do all your calculations using a decimal number of feet, gallons, and pounds? Because if there is, I know a lot of people who are going to get in trouble when the Bureau of Weights and Measures catches up with them.
I had always assumed that we were taught fractions because most of the techniques are necessary for algebra.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
Of the kid who revealed the function...
I don't think that you should use calculators in that context anyway. part of what you are learing is .428571... ==3/7, but part of it is learning the process, and how do you discover that process. (as well as perhaps noticing the neat property of the decimal of 7ths.)
Contrary to the response which I've actually gotten from some math teachers, the reason you learn math is *not* " so you can tell when a train leaving chicago at 50 mph meets a train leaving boston at 60 mph..."* It is how do you discover the method of finding the answer. the actual answer is just a way of keeping track. A calculator will not help this process.
* I want to make absolutely clear I am not being snide here. this is what actual math teachers, high-school math teachers have said in response to the question "why do we learn math?"** this is not hearsay, though I admit my sampling is very small.
** the actual answer is never, the chicago train is going to LA. (Now I'm being snide!)
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Breakfast served all day!
they will have to remove the secret division key, to keep students from converting fractions to decimals automatically.
-Dave
My high school algebra teacher (Hey, does Mr. Krem read slashdot?) used to always tell us "No calculators on this test" to which I'd alwasy reply, "How about an abacus?"
Of course, he always called my bluff and said sure.
Turns out I had him for Calc later one... They he use to tell us graphing calculators weren't allowed... "Um, how about a graphing abacus?"
When I was in High-Schrool, holding me back was my hand in mechanically writing such long equations on paper just for the sake of showing "work" as they called it. I am verry much self taught, and I don't learn by repetition but by application. I need to find the use of Calculus in nature and apply it to keep fresh in my head or the knowledge decays. I can see a future where all the simple mathematics opperands are removed from calculators and somehow only complex math could be used; in such a motto by whatever Committee on education, exclaiming that anyone that can't find the cube root of 3 on paper doesn't deserve to exist. Worse, I expect calculators (most-likely HP) to be redesigned with RFID capability so a "master unit" could disable certain functions. It's outright stupidity on the part of "educators", and the truth of that matter that these "educators" of today are incapable of inspiring students to learn so they influence inferior courts to coerce attendance to sub-18 years young people that usually already have a career-worthy job worth warding away from illegal aliens (if you believe they exist, that is). Wouldn't it be a blessing if students were blessed with the ideal of voluntary attendance? Some of my family and friends over in Austin Texas are being coerced with their children into "voluntarily" attending those fake courts; you know, when a student can't bring their D to a C, then everyone but the teacher is penalized by fines. At the beginning and end of the court, you are forced to voluntarily sign an agreement granting jurisdiction and all that crap; children are disrespected with military-like shouting and walking into a fortified-fence prison-like compound of temporary trailer buildings. That education sure isn't inspiring any: from a bunch of derelict, morally bankcrupt job-security wanting goons. It seems like all the unconstitutional/encroachments relating to every part of society, such as DMV, FDA, FBI, CIA, all appeared on Our watch. Ever wonder how such institutions were pulverized back to lawyer hell 200 years ago? I collect law books, and what little material I've found that was published before 1850 is such an inspiring read I think any depressed student should read. Truth conquers, isn't that truth?
without prejudice
I don't see how this is such a big deal. I live in Montgomery County, MD and I've used a TI-83+ since 7th grade. All you have to do is press "Math" and enter. There: your fraction is converted to decimal. Why recall them? It's not like theres anything wrong with the calculators in the first place. All the BOE has to do is ban that specific model. Also, I don't see the point in recalling these calculators seeing how I still use mine from 7th grade (I'm a senior in highschool now).
No, because I want to hire a kid who really knows how to convert decimals into fractions, not a kid who only knows how to use a calculator.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
"A 12-year-old discovered"...?
The damned calculator should have been recalled if that feature wasn't already in the manual.
If it was, then give the kid a cookie for actually bothering to RTFM.
That depends upon what you're testing.
If it was basic multiplication, that would be fine. Once you can multiple 2x3 on paper, you can multiply everything from 1x1 to 9x9. The technique does not change at all.
The same goes for 12x11 and 36x156. Once the initial concept is understood all further applications can be reduced to that basic concept.
The same with fractions and decimals.
But when you allow a calculator, you are NOT testing their knowledge of the basic techniques. Multiplying 99x2314 means learning a more advanced technique with paper and pencil.
With a calculator, it is the same as 2x3.
No, "regurgitation" is the memorization of items. If someone can memorize the multiplication tables up to quadruple digits, there isn't much you can do to "teach" that person.
What "critical thinking" is there in accepting what a machine tells you?
But the calculator only gives them answers. Most students would rather use a calculator to "just write answers down to a hundred questions".
Which is my point. Using a calculator at that grade is NOT testing their knowledge of the material.
Yep, and the pencil and paper will NOT provided ANY information that is not already in the kid's head.
Not if the kid does NOT know the technique for adding 2+2.
Yet with a calculator, it is possible to get the answer and still NOT know the technique.
No, that is called "lowering the bar".
Two kids...
one how understands the concepts and techniques
and
one who does not.
Both sit down, with calculators and complete 100 multiplication problems.
Both score the same.
Both get 100% correct.
THAT is the problem.
It might. But more likely, it will be used to mask a core problem.
Which, in more sensible terms means "masks the kid's failure to grasp the concepts".
...
Which was the point I made above.
Sure, the calculator will allow a kid who does not know how to do basic math to score a perfect grade on a test covering basic math
Okay, now you're completely off it.
First you have to know HOW these things are done before you just grab an off-the-shelf solution, at least if you want to pretend to expertise, which at the college level is your goal. For instance, being a CS guy, I use off-the-shelf operating systems and compilers, but by golly, I could code one myself if I wanted to.
The parent's example is particulary egregious since virtually all challenges in college are artificial. Using the above "wisdom", I might as well just sneak out of any test, grab my textbook, and fill in the answers therefrom, expecting an A. After all, why bother remembering all that knowledge when it's written down somewhere for easy reference anyway? Answer: You are there to learn the material, not just learn where the library is. Blah...this stuff is obvious.
Funny that the state that tried to legislate the value of pi as exactly 3 wants its students to know any more math than is required to find a page in the bible.
"When I was learning maths as school, only about 30% of the mark for any given question came from getting the correct answer. The other 70 percent came from showing that you understood the process of arriving at that answer"
In standardized tests in the US, the multiple choice answer is the only data that is evaluated. This doesn't have any relationship to the instruction and testing methods of the school, but standardized tests are a fact of life.
If you don't like it, persuade the Board of Education.
This sounds like an outrage. First they give us standardize test that are subpar and very easy I might add. Then to make themselves look better they recall a learning tool. They are recalling those school issued calcs but what about all the personal ones, will they be banned next? What happens when they find out that the TI-89 can do calculus, will they ban those too? And sense when is it unfair to know how to use a calculator? Paper and pencil are so old School these days.
This line of thinking is exactly why cashiers can't give correct change when the power goes out, the network is down, or you give them odd change so you get rid of change and get whole dollars back.
Setting the bar as low as you suggest begs the question: Why teach anything that you can use a calculator for?
IMO, the point isn't even the math. It's about teaching someone the basics of thinking through a problem without pulling the answer from somewhere.
<soapbox>We're already teaching our kids that there are no losers. Giving them the lesson that you don't have to understand and solve simple problems is just another step towards a society of people who, in Real Life®, find themselves facing problems without the help of a cheat sheet and simply wait for someone else to solve them (which eventually will stop happening).</soapbox>
I'm a Virginia student, and its not really an advantage- you can pretty much use whatever calculator you want in class, and you can use the ones they provide you with on the tests. BUT- there are a maximum of 11% of the 55 questions that use fractions. Thats about, ugh, wheres my calculaotr?
(And don't get me started on fluid onces vs. dry ounces. Ruined more batches of pancakes than I can count with that one!)
As to your algebra comment, I agree that basic fractions provide a good grounding for some concepts, but those fundamentals could be taught without fractions with no harm done. Mixed fractions, one of the more painful concepts, disappears entirely. Also, I can't speak for your elementary school years, but the curiculum at my school always seemed to have an obsession with fractions. I figure I lost perhaps a total of a year of math because the instructors couldn't allow the slowest kids go on without mastering fractions. Everything had to grind to a halt and advanced topics went uncovered until they caught up.
Oh, well. At least I got A's while we waited for the bottom quartile.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
They're using technology to solve their problems. That's not right at all. Just say no to any technology that helps you work faster, because it's not fair to all the luddites who won't use it!
I'm sure lawyers could find a way to make the kid pay for the cost of the recall.
Wow... i just took an Algebra 2 Honors final today in highschool, and we just do this by hitting one key. Also, our TI83 Plus calculator has text input and can be hooked up to a computer so you can put files onto it, so you can basically have all the formulas in front of you without any memorization. (I dont do this, but my friends do) Also, there are many programs out there which you can easily download for free and put on your calculator which can do all of the work for you. Some of these programs have even been encouraged for us to use by our school such as a solution finder for exponential eqations instead of having to use the quadratic equation. However, I do feel there are many drawbacks to calculators now. For example, I find it hard now to do math in my head such as subtracting and adding negative numbers and multiplying three didgit numbers. Overall though, I think calculators are very benificial, however the steps that these schools are taking are outrageous.
Well... thats my two cents (actually its probably more like 20 cents)
Pharoah6905
I found flaws in thier network but i didnt get a "low-key ceremony to honor him" i got suspended for two months.
Error 2101: all your sig are belong to us
YOu're right, of course. Thankfully I'm neither a student nor an American, but I do feel sorry for those that are.
Take .5932.
Now put it over 1, like this:
----
1
Look! It's a fraction!
Do people actually think there is such a thing as 'fractions'? Come on people, we're supposed to be intelligent on this site, and we're talking like 14 year olds with no actual grasp of math. 'Fractions' are just numbers represented as a division of two numbers. (And, despite my silly example, usually integers.)
'Converting' them is not a skill independant of reducing equations.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Seriously, maybe I've forgotten or something, but how hard could it possibly be to figure out how to convert decimals into fractions? I mean, surely, to know decimals at all, you need to be familiar with how they work, powers of ten and stuff. How could anyone not know to just get rid of the decimal point and put it over 10, or 100, or 1000 or whatever...?
I mean, hell, you've got a calculator. You can multiply the damn thing by 1000 or so to get an integer. Who on earth is teaching these kids?
Its not a bug, its a feature!
HAHAHAHA You stopped listing decimal versions of fractions at 0.25!!! You don't know 1/5, 1/6, 1/8, or 1/10? 0.2, 0.1667, 0.125 or 0.1?
Also, 0.3 isn't a fraction of 1/3, which you were obviously implying, it is:
__
0.33
I sincerely doubt you meant 3/10.
a suffusion of yellow
See that "Preview" button?
back in high school those of us who didn't have pocketchange to drop the bills on one of those uber powerful HP48 laptop calculators were in a similar disadvantage.
Dumb profs allowed people to bring these into exams (SAT's and AP tests in particular) along with built in dictionaries and all those neato cartridges that have everything they need on them.
Unfair advantage? Yes. Makes them an idiot in the long run? perhaps. Bitterness at being poor and unable to buy one, definitely.
http://www.engineering.ualberta.ca/nav03.cfm?nav03 =19343&nav02=18510&nav01=18439
I took Engineering school about 300 km south, and we were still allowed the HP 48 GX then. Experimentation showed that the reliable communication range was about six inches. If you were that close to your fellow student during an exam, you would already be under suspicion.
I previously had a TI-85 when I went through high school, ending back in 1995. It had the infamous decimal-> fraction conversion.
Reminds me of a story about house framers one time: there was a board up on top of a house that was too long. Way too many workers stood around while different people ran to get some extension cords, hoisted a Skilsaw up to the board, hooked the power up and cut the board in 3 seconds. Elapsed time: 15 minutes. Elapsed time if someone pulled out a handsaw form a toolbox, hoisted it up and someone else sawed it in 30 seconds: 5 minutes max. Kids need to learn how to understand the problem and learn what they can solve on their own before they start looking the "right tool." Quick: What's 7 + 8? Now, how many of you reached for a calculator?
In my old school, there was a rule where we had to clear the memories of our calculators before each exam. Presumeably, it's in case we invented some fractal compression algorithm that allowed us to store all our lecture notes as a 10-digit signed number.
"The problem is we're putting the tools into the hands of those who won't benefit from them yet. Here's your lightsaber, young padawan; now go slice people with it, don't worry about that force-factoring thing."
And in other news. Slashdotters reverse their age old positions, and now technology instead of users is to blame.
Heh, I knew that jab was likely to come. I don't have access to a grammar book or I would've checked that, honestly. The closest thing I have is a style guide, and that won't do me any good. You probably know what I intend already, but my feeling is that a typical student is much more likely to just use Word to check the grammar for them, rather than learning it, if they are presented with the option.
I considered it as in "I do not know", "We do not know", "The kids do not know". Thinking of it the way that I should've, "The generation does not know", it is definitely better with "does" than with "do".
I had to use my slide rule a couple of times when I forgot my calculator. Bit difficult for addition, but easy enough for trig functions and multiplication (I prefer my circular slide rule). Each time, after the exam, the proctor told me that he had spare calculators--and one time, I walked home with an eight foot slide rule!
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To those of you in the "let 'em use calculators-- learning arithmetic is a waste of time" camp: I used to be ambivalent about the subject, but after doing a stint tutoring at a local high school I now say "no way".
Recently I was tutoring a 9th or 10th grader who had failed her pre-Algebra course and was having to take it again. IIRC, we were working on adding 3x3 matrices. *Adding*, fer crissakes...
First part, adding something like 3 and -7. She reaches for the calculator... "OK, she's not yet comfortable with negative numbers, I'll let that slide...", I think.
Next, adding 1/2 and 1/2. She punches *that* into the calculator. "You know how to add one half and one half, don't you?" I ask. She glances at the calculator. "22", she answers. "What?", I say. She shows me the calculator, and it says "2/2". We spend a few minutes going over why 1/2 + 1/2 is both 2/2 and 1.
Next, 5 + 0. Yup, you saw it coming. She reaches for the calculator. "Come on now, you can do that in your head!" I say, and she gives a sheepish grin and says "Oh, yeah... 5"
This fall I'll become a high school math teacher for the first time.
Rule #1: No fscking calculators.
CC-licensed translations of Japanese fiction: http://tonygonz.blogspot.com/
About the only subject that hasn't changed or matured at the rate of all other subjects is Math. Everyone speaks so highely of mental strength and what not but what does that do for you? You end up too busy trying to figure out how to do small problems that you forget about the bigger picture the problem is involved in.
So what you use a calculator? People use computers without knowing a darn thing about them. They just push the button and call tech support when it doesnt work.
If you sit there and spend countless hours trying to figure out what kind of specs you have or how to install a stick of memory you will never get to push the button. Alot of people are detered just by all the work involved with math that they don't even get to the higher level stuff or see how it relates to life and that it is sometimes useful (calc can be useful).
There are authors that aren't good at spelling but write books, teachers that aren't good at a certain subject but teach, construction workers that don't know how to make blue prints but still build. Life is full of blocks you step on but for the most part you don't even see are there.
Math asks for perfection. Maybe it is just the pure nature of the subject. Everything has to be precise and accurate even though the more advanced courses start teaching how everything is far from accurate. They don't give you spelling tests in English 101, they're just fine and dandy with you useing spell/grammar check as long as you write a beautiful paper.
What happens if everyone has a TI-92 and only a handful of people actually know how to get to the answer without a calculater? If everyone owns a TI-92 it will no longer matter except for certain situations. You don't need to become a living calculator to figure out a problem a machine can do for you.
What happens if instead of math being teached in school programming was? Math is a fundamental part of programming but is basically overlooked as a part of the bigger picture. I learned variables in my C++ class before I learned them in my algebra class. I ended up going a year before figuring out they were one in the same (I understood variables in programming better then those in math because I could apply them to something bigger).
If you learn programming the math will inevitably come with it.
Why are we still depending on the manual method when a machine can do it for us (and faster for almost everyone, I'm sorry I don't live in a math book)?
You have a toaster for making toast, a microwave that zaps your food, a TV instead of a newspaper, a computer instead of a TV. Block upon block to make a bigger and better picture. The only people freaking out about what we're stepping on are the ones that don't want to let go of the years they spent in there books (I am college educated).
It is good to look at the smaller things in life but if you look at them all the time you won't see anything besides them.
Pawn shop
-- This void intentionally left null.
Yea!! A nerd somewhere got his wings.
I can understand banning calculators for basic math, but I don't understand why so many people seem to be so bitter about calculators in the classroom. The _best_ teachers(professors) I've ever had allowed calculators and all of there functions, but it didn't matter. Their curriculum and tests were based around understanding the concept, not getting some worthless inanimate answer.
A 6th grader shouldn't need to know how to do the basics by hand.
If the calculator has a gcd function, then the not having a >Frac function is only a minor inconvience.
I liked my TI-89 Titanium in Algebra II (which I just finished). It helped to speed up slow functions for purposes(for checking your work, or for fun), but you still have to show your work, so taking away the calculator is pointless.
The kids need to know what a function does before they can use it.
Having a over-powered calculator can be good for you. It helped explore all the great fun in the Discrete Fourier Transform.
I have seen the inability to give correct change example too many times here. The ability to give correct change does not necessarily have much to do with using your head for math instead of calculators. I officially learned about giving correct change in 1st grade. In college I had to use my head for complex math in electrical engineering courses. For a short while after college I did some cashiering. I only got good at giving change just before I quit to move on to a more challenging job. It takes a little practice. My previous frequent use of my head for math gave me only a small advantage. The task is too simple to allow a large advantage.
Flash cards have a tendency to move the number calculation process to the subconscious, and, if done at the right time in a child's life, can remain there forever.
Get rid of everything Micro and Soft: Buy Viagra and/or Linux
Once again that one kid ruins it for the rest of us. Lets beat his ass.
"That's right it makes me lazy. I don't want to have to double check my arithmetic when I have to do 7*19. I'm not usually the kind of person to be working on a problem where the arithmetic is the interesting part."
One has to wonder if Einstein would have used a calculator? What about the rest?
Attention class:
Please keep in mind that batteries and electricity will not be around forever and therefore, although you must pay 70 bucks for it, calculators are not allowed on the exams, just the homework.
Because everyone knows that they don't used calculators or computer in the "real world". It's much different there.
.5 = 5/10 .25 = 25/100 .125 = 125/1000
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Throw this kid in jail! He is circumventing a security device!
Why is some technology thought to be "bad" for learning, but older technology is okay?
At one point in time, paper, pencil, and electric light were all new.
Why don't teacher insist that students make their own paper and pencil and candles? What if there was a nuclear war and you couldn't just go out and buy these things?
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
KOA
Giant sea-based radar that looks like something out of a science fiction movie
To the People of the State of New York:
IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It would be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. There are causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were removed.
Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this origin. This cause would exist among us in full force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United States. There still are discordant and undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all. It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated discussion concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went under the name of crown lands. The States within the limits of whose colonial governments they were comprised have claimed them as their property, the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of the Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the whole. This has been so far accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, to afford a decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this dispute, and would create others on the same subject. At present, a large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least, if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union. If that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the motive of the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made, could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy, remained undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it should be admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a share of this common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. Different principles would be set up by different States for this purpose; and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties, they might not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment.
In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences. The circumstances of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming, admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of such differences. The articles of confederation obliged the parties to submit the
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
This reminds me of taking open book tests in university. The professor would allow any text or reference material, it really didn't matter. It came down to either you know your stuff or you don't.
When those calculator watches first came out I was in elementary school... and thought those must be the easy route to straight A's in math all the way through. I remember a babysitter working on math homework and I was convinced she was cheating since she "openly" used a calculator.
If you understand fractions, calculating them conventionally with a calculator is trivial. If you don't, exactly how much benefit could this be? How many questions on this exam could possibly be solved simply by converting fractions to decimal? Yes, I realize these kids are only 12... but still, surely there must be a little more to the questions than that.
You are of course right about maths being a valuable life skill, but if I'm allowed to nitpick, I'd say the same applies to all blackboxes: before one can use them right, one needs at least _some_ understanding of how it works inside. The same applies IMHO to programming.
The line of thinking "oh, we'll give programmers a bunch blackboxes and they don't have to know the algorithms behind them" is what got us saddled with co-workers who can't code worth crap. Yes, it's not needed to know the exact MPEG4 algorithm, but without knowledge of at least the basics, well, that's how we got at the point where 3 out of 4 "programmers" can't program.
I see _consultants_ advocating using two arrays for large data sets instead of a hash table. Presumably because they never learned that one is O(1) and one is O(n).
I've seen _two_ co-workers end up debugging into a HashMap (because they were utterly lost when finding their own bugs) and go "Java is broken! It replaced my item in the array with another! My data is lost!" Turns out that they had no fucking clue what a linked list is, and that merely a new node was added to the front of one.
And then there's the one I fondly call Wally, who was attempting basically this:
public void nuller(int x) {
x = 0;
}
public void testNuller() {
int x = 1;
nuller(x);
assertTrue("x should be 0", x == 0);
}
Then did it again later. The concept of "call by value" was utterly lost on him.
Or pointers? Java's syntax hides pointers, making them basically a blackbox. Something that just happens behind the scenes for you. Unfortunately I see people bitten in the ass everyday by utter lack of knowledge of what a pointer is and how it works.
Or then there's security. I've seen consultants from a big corporation implementing a system so full of security holes it wasn't even funny. They honestly thought that just slapping together some blackboxes with lots of buzzwords made them safe. It didn't.
They failed to grasp even basic concepts as "what if the user edits the '?user_id=1234' to '?user_id=0' in the URL and makes themselves super-user?" Yes, that sad. They failed to understand basic concepts like non-repudiation: when someone deleted their own user from that system, the program would helpfully cascade through all tables and erase all tracks that the user ever existed or ever done anything. They failed to even notice they need to quote the user input, both when displaying it in HTML _and_ when using it in an SQL querry. Etc.
Basically anything that wasn't already built in their blackboxes, they were utterly obvlivious to.
So basically, no, I wouldn't expect a random person off the street to implement MPEG4 either, but I'd expect anyone paid as a programmer to know at least the basics (the equivalent of arithmetic in maths) before they're even given a MPEG4 library and told to add that to a program.
Which brings me back to maths: the same is true for maths and a lot of jobs. Even if one decided that 10x10 isn't needed for Burger King jobs, we're not preparing _all_ kids for that kind of jobs. Expecting someone to understand the more advanced maths used in most engineering or science fields when their knowledge of the basics is just "oh, I push these two buttons on a calculator", is IMHO like building a house without the ground floor.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Back in the day, when cable television first came onto the scene, one of the first set top boxes released (I remember they were beige and I think it was made by American Standard) allowed you to press both the up and down channel buttons at the same time and *poof* you'd get the pay stations.
;)
Since most of our parents refused to buy those stations (because some stations, like the first generation of The Movie Channel, showed raunchy movies at all hours because there wasn't any regulation then) it was quite the experience
And that means blowjobs without a condom are okay because everyone knows that they have nothing to do with sex.
When would you need to convert decimals to fractions? If you are solving an equation, you start in fractions and end in fractions. You can then convert to decimals if you want an approimate answer at the end. Can anyone illustrate a practical use for this ability?
So now the only math they are teaching kids is how to convert decimals to fractions? Might as well because almost everything else they teach can be done easily on a calculator.
I have listened to the cries and moans about how my website is a uhm well everything negative. So I created Captain Dann. At the top of my homepage there's http://www.newpath4.com/index.html#CaptainDanSecre tCode . The "Secret Code" is the Order of Operations surrounding the ABC's... proving my website now has some REAL VALUE! And down below there is http://www.newpath4.com/index.html#TheCouchPotatoD iaryies where I have links to my new weight loss report, a system that has helped me lose weight, lower my blood pressure, and get my pulse rate down to 46... in one month's time.
Way before my teachers realised there were calculators that could do that.
On a side note, I do think a 12 year old should learn how to do this by hand, it's part of fundamental education, but thats just my opinion.
How the hell did the teachers railroad the community into paying outrageous salaries, how did corporations get a monopoly for selling their products (like only pepsi and no coca-cola), and at prices twice as high as off campus??
How the hell is it unreasonable to expect a six figure salary after you've gotten a four year degree, a doctorate, AND TEN YEARS EXPERIENCE?!?
It is a damn shame that education has boiled down to money. I would love to see "free" universities, where people who love a subject give classes. How many 60ish year old retired engineers are there that would love to teach math part time, just because they love it?
You mean so you can go for free and not pay these people anything for their time? You want to do this, go right ahead, but expect this of others, and you deserve a strong slap in the face. You sir, are an ass.
It's easy to figure out what happened if you do a little snooping around. The CNN article doesn't tell you what buttons he pressed, and searching Google for "TI-30 Xa SE VA" will bring up every article on the matter which all have identical writeups.
Now, I took the first link that Google threw at me and there's a better picture there of the two calculators held up side-by-side. The "fixed" calculator is the one on the left. As you can see, the newly removed button is in the lower left corner of the calculator.
If you know your TI calculators, you'll know exactly what this button does, or rather, what its second function does. If you have no idea where I'm going with this, check out a stock TI-30 Xa here. It's a large enough image that you can easily see the symbols written in yellow above the key in the lower left corner of the calculator.
The symbols above the key in question are "FD" which means "press this key if you want to convert a Fraction to a Decimal or a Decmial to a Fraction". All you have to do to access this function is press the yellow "2nd" key located all the way at the upper left of the calculator (it's in the same row as the blanked out keys on the modified TIs).
I double checked my assumption, and you can see the directions in the manual on page 6 of the PDF.
TI just removed the yellow lettering above the key and hoped that no one would figure out the "2nd" + "FD" key combination.
If the test results can be so easily skewed by a cheap $15 device that can be found anywhere, then it is likely that the test itself is flawed.
I see the same problem with people who cheat on exams by bringing in books and notes. If the test can be so easily skewed by such materials, then make the test in a way that having books and notes does not help, and let the test be open book and notes. Instead, what I see are professors who rely upon problems whose complete solution can be found in any book, so that the course becomes more about regurgitating or even copying what is found in a book, rather than about understanding the material.
~Kevin
This is just plain stupid on their part. While a calculator may allow someone to check their answer, there's no-way it's going to show working as well. In any case, they should be insisting on working and be giving some marks to sttudents who understand what is required, but perhaps make a simple calculation error.
I agree, "show your workin" would eliminate the issue and make for better exams.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I know no-one will ever read down this far *but* doesn't this whole thing just scream to the educators that no-one will ever *need* to do it for themselves if a crappy calculator can? It might be an easy task but, isn't the point of technology to make our lives easier? I *COULD* manually cook food on the whole oven/hotplate/stove/taking 45 minutes affair, but wouldn't it just be *easier* to you know, stick it in the microwave? Seems to me that the same principle is in action.
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
... Here in Denmark, the tst is split up in two - one with, and one without a calculator (and yes, we use TI as well. Gotta love Drifter!)
We had to show working to explain how we got to the answer. The answer itself was only worth 1 out of a possible 4 usually. Using the calculator without any knowledge will only get you 25%, you need actual knowledge of how to do it to get the rest, the calculator can be used to verify you haven't made a stupid mistake along the way.
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
Don't get me wrong, it's cool this student discovered this and should get some props, but it really is insignificant to accomplishments that have gotten other students kicked out of school. How is this much different than students who crack school computers to demonstrate security weakness? Look at it this way: some kid has discovered a flaw in technology or figures out how to make a system do what it wasn't originally intended to do, that ends up costing someone some amount of money to correct the problem. Sound similar to other events we've read here on /. where said students are drawn and quartered for their actions? Why aren't students who show the grading system is insecure given similar "honors"? The inconsistency and hypocrisy here is profound. Do something minor and accidental that shows a mistake, and you are a hero; do something important and intentional, and you are a terrorist.
Join Tor today!
I had a friend who had one of those scientific calculators that did graphics and stuff. He used it in an engineering exam but before he was allowed to take it in the examiner had to inspect his calculator to see if it had any information (formula, graphs, charts and the like.) stored in its memory. When the examiner looked at his calculator and saw all the stuff he had on there he made him press the reset button to wipe its memory clean. "All well and good" thought the examiner "no info on his calculator, he wont be able to cheat."....Until my friend sat down in the exam and pressed three buttons on the calculator together...which restored the memories contents from the fail safe back up in the calculator. Suffice to say he passed.
in other news, 11 year old Christy Schwartz, had a portion of her brain recalled because she discovered she was able to convert decimals to fractions 'in her head'. School officials stated that this gave her an unfair advantage because students are required to, "do this with pencil-and-paper".
This clinging blindly to the past is severe ludditeism (is that a word?) Especially hamstringing students abilities to function in the future.
When these kids go to the work force, they won't need to be preoccupied with dealing with fractions, as that will all be done for them (by computers/whatever. The good news is they will be dealing with the far more complex concepts, that would involve so many fraction computations they would never be able to do them manually anyway.
I remember when..... (I'm not that old)
When we sat or School Certificate exams (N.Z. about the age of 15) We were the first year that were allowed to use calculators (about 1984).
Before then people HAD to use log books and SLIDE RULES!!!. It was considered sort of cheating to use a calculator for working out SIN and TAN etc.
There was always the background theme of "One day your precious calculators will fail and you will be forced to use slide rules again and then where will you be??"
Of course what happened is that just about everything is now done by Computer. I have a novelty calculator (REALLY BIG BUTTONS!) on my desk that I use for stream of conciousness adding, but I really havent seen either a log book or a slide rule since that school.
Move along... there is no sig here.
It always kills me how fraction focused American society is (distance on street signs [1/4 mile to next off-ramp], units of measure [1/2 gallon of milk], stock prices [up until a few years ago], money [a quater - which incidentally isn't what a pay phone call costs anymore]. I guess it stems from the fact that they haven't adopted the metric system yet. Sure 1/3 is more compact than 0.3333333 but seriously who wants to have to worry about whether 7/8 of an inch is bigger than 3/4 of an inch when it's immediately obvious by inspection that 0.875 is bigger than 0.75? My biggest shock was when I was in St. Louis in 1999 and the daughter of a friend I was staying with had just started college and was busy doing fractions in her math course. The last time I did fractions as an official topic was some time in primary school (grade school in Americanese). As for the calculator side of things, I had one in high school which I used mostly for science and trig. In university I had an HP48G which helped me zero with calculus and advanced trig. It did the odd bit of matrix manipulation but we left the serious stuff up to MatLab. To tell the truth I haven't missed it once since it got stolen about 6 years ago (anyone interested in the manuals and a box - drop me a line). The biggest irony for me though was when someone on the street in Chicago asked me what the time was and after telling them "a quater to three" twice and getting a blank stare, I switched to "two forty five" and watched the light go on!
>> Do people actually think there is such a thing as 'fractions'?
Of course, fractions are numbers represented as the division of two numbers. Kids need to know how to manipulate them, not just write them.
>> Come on people, we're supposed to be intelligent on this site...
Keep loooking.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Perhaps the reverse is true. Kids are smarter because of the tools they now have. If not smarter, certainly more capable.
20+ years ago (1985!) kids where basically cannon fodder that could do basic multiplication. Now they use 3d software to make models for their counterstrike clans. They might not know how to spell, but they can desktop publish.
It's always worth remembering that people have been saying "Kids these days" since the dawn of time. And never once have they turned out to be right.
The easy ones? I agree on .5 and on .25 (which are 1/2 and 1/4), but not on .3.
I'm sure you had 1/3 in mind when you wrote that example.
That however is a gross approximation, and currently a subject of hot political debate in Luxembourg. You know, one of the standard beer sizes in Luxembourgish pubs used to be 0.33 l, which amount to roughly 1/3. Now, come some genius pencil pusher in Brussels, and he mandates that it should be 0.3 l instead. Not only is that a worse approximation of 1/3 than 0.33, but in addition, it is less beer! But don't worry, these stoopid Eurocrats will learn their lesson on July 10th.
Never piss off a thirsty Luxembourger!
I have found myself changing fractions to decimals, but I can't think of a time when I wanted to chance something back to a fraction. Either way, it seems strange to want to cripple technology. Why would you let kids at that math level use a calculator to begin with? Their entire curriculum is calculator math. I didn't even own a calculator in college, and I got as far as Complex Variable Calc.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I got my first TI-81, my knowledge of mathematics took off. Did I use the stupid thing to cheat of tests - sure, none of my teachers apparently knew it as well as I trained myself in it.
/.'ers would, but I think the majority of my classmates did not. So left with a button that would be a quick answer - they might never learn how the math theory works behind doing the work. Once they get that - I'd be all for them being able to use their calculators to do the grunt work for them, but I think they need to be trained to understand the underlying math first...
Same went for when I upgraded to the 82, and then eventually the 95.
Mostly I wrote stupid little games on the things to amuse me during class, like old Atari games.
But in doing so - I found that by the act of programming my calculator to do the work for me when it came to math classes, it actually was like a really good form of studying - in order to make it work I had to understand how the math wrked in the first place, so it made me learn even thouhg I was just trying to simplify things for myself. And once I was in the advanced college math classes, the fact that I had a 3D graphing calculator made me explore what we were doing in all kinds of new ways, things I'd never have done without the calculator - and it made me learn more about what we were doing.
So I think, despite my best efforts to use the damn thing to cheat and make my life easier - it did in fact help me to learn better what I was doing in math class.
But I don't know that everyone would do that and use the calculator in such a way - maybe most
Still, it seems there would have been an easier fix to me...
Give the students the chance to use their calculators on some parts of the test - and specifically take them away from them for the decimal/fraction conversions... A recall of that calculator seems a bit extreme for a situation that doesn't seem to warrant it at all.
Casio has been making calculators for years that include a key to perform this function. What's the big deal just because it's a "hidden" feature on the TI?
I had some use for calculators in college. One professor I had (statics class) didn't even expect numeric answers. We had a quiz once that had a pile of sand of a particular shape and density sitting on a (funny shaped?) platform with an arm going down to a pivot against a wall with a rope holding it from tipping over (I think there were more elements to it but I forgot). Problem was: How do you compute the tension in the rope? He made it clear that he wanted you to write down HOW to solve the problem, but you didn't have to provide a numeric answer. For me it was easy: 1) set up integral to find mass of sand - show what to integrate and the limits. 2) set up another thing to find the CG of the sand (again, don't solve). 3) show the expressions needed to solve a system of equations including the tension in the rope. Done. Other students started actually doing integrals and calculations. Some didn't finnish in time (it was like a 20 minute quiz), some got marked down for wrong answers (misused the calculator). I aced it with a couple minutes to spare. I thought it was perfect to illustrate that you knew what we recently covered in statics without having to "do the math". The key is to know what you're supposed to be learning, and not use tools that do it for you.
Using Maxima to solve integrals in my statics class would be OK because it wasn't even required and wouldn't help with the problem at hand. Using calculators that do fractions before you even know algebra is detrimental to your education.
My sister was teaching (grade? 6th? 7th?) and a kid asked her why it was important to learn math if he didn't want to go into a math-related field like engineering. She said something to the effect of "if you don't know math, how will you ever know that people aren't ripping you off?". Apparently that particular answer clicked with him ;-)
Geez, back in my day, that would simply cause the calculator to light up extra segments on the display! Kids these days are so lucky!
I bought a TI-92 (the VHS tape sized graphing machine) for Calc/physics in college and it always had this function.
That was in 1996.
Calculators don't make kids less intelligent or less able to do math, poor teaching and poorer books do.
Apple free since 1990!
Why are the giving calculators to 6th graders anyway? At that age they should be learning the math.
Just remembering highschool algebra and the TI-81 I was required to buy gives me the jibblies. I never understood algebra and I doubt I ever will.
...back in the '80s. For example, IIRC if you press one key along the top and one along the left side they will emulate the key at the intersection of their column and row, respectively. This is a side-effect of doing row/column strobe keyboard addressing.
Here's how ot works. Simple keyboards like those on calculators are arranged as a grid on wires, one wire for each column and row on the keyboard. At the intersection of each wire, there's a normally-open switch. The designer decides whether they want to strobe the rows and read the columns or vice versa. Let's assume a 4 row, 3 column keypad (like a telephone), and that you'll strobe the columns and read the rows. Assume that the columns are numbered 0-2 left to right, and the rows 0-3 top to bottom. That means you'll have to have 4 bit read and 3 bit write capability. To read the keyboard, a signal is applied to each column in turn, and the rows are read while the signal is present on each column. If the 5 button is pressed, row 1 will have the signal present only when column 1 is being strobed. By pressing several keys at once, it is possible to simulate the pressing of any key.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I love TI calculators, though, I have 4 graphing calcs, I really got started with programming on my 83, and I've written TI-BASIC, Z80 assembler, and C programs for them. When you start mucking around with assembly (or C if you're using the low-level key APIs), you figure out how the keypad works. On the TI-82, for instance, if you want to test for the MODE key being pressed, you write a byte to port 1, the keyboard port. Set a bit corresponding to the row the key is on, in this case, bit 6. Now read a byte from port 1 -- any bit cleared corresponds to keys that are pressed (in this case, bit 6). So it's a sort of matrix -- you've got rows and columns, so you mask a row and look at a column. It's possible, however, to make the calculator think you're pressing 4 keys when you're only pressing 3, if they're 3 corners of a key matrix square.
What TI did here was take the key off the keypad and remove the contact, but the actual calculator didn't know that. This kid figured out how to make it think he was pressing the Dec->Frac button. It'd be pretty hard for TI to do anything about this, although I imagine they will.
Now just wait till high school when this same kid puts a TI-89 in an 83's case, complete with swapping out the keys and everything. Then he can get a program that just shows a blinking cursor, and he's all set.
(and what's with Slashdot telling me I've failed to prove my humanity after I'm logged in, but not giving me a captcha image to do so?
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
The distinction between one calculator which is acceptable and another which is not is a very arbitrary one. Really, all calculators make the solutions to problems too easy and, when used in education, prevent one from learning the whole lesson. For any type of problem you're likely to need to solve without your crutch handy, becoming dependent on said crutch to solve the problem is a Bad Idea (tm).
Something like the slide rule, on the other hand, requires some understanding of the problem to get the right answer. It's an augmentative device that, in aiding you, also trains you to better handle situations without it.
I like to think slide rules are to calculators as bikes are to cars: calcs and autos do it for you, thus atrophying your ability to do it yourself. Slipsticks and bikes require something of you to get the job done, thus exercising your capacities. So you use the calc when you have to, and the slide rule when you can. Drive when you have to, ride when you can.
There are probably lots of other examples of this, not all of them technological: speed dial versus address book, lawsuits versus negotiation, war versus diplomacy, you name it.
6. Audible Alarm (not shown)
-from a Cuisinart product owner's manual.
Why cant you just not allow them on that part of the test.
"This line of thinking is exactly why cashiers can't give correct change when the power goes out, the network is down, or you give them odd change so you get rid of change and get whole dollars back. Setting the bar as low as you suggest begs the question: Why teach anything that you can use a calculator for?" Not knowing how to count change is one example. Incorrect usage of the term "begs the question" would be another. --- Slashdot, where everybody needs to put a little faggot quote at the end of their post.
where you just randomly hit two buttons together and they do something useful
i always STRUGGLED in school with math -- failed algebra one, barely passed it the second time around. had a WONDERFUL teacher for geometry who tried many different methods to teach me, and spent many hours during lunch working wtih me to no avail. i think the only reason she passed me was so that she didnt get stuck reteaching me the following year. poor soul ended up with me in her class -- AGAIN -- but ths time for algebra two. THAT SAID.... when i was preparing to take the GRE, i was scared shitless. i was a communications major, after all, in college. didnt have the money for a prep course so i spent lots of time with the prep workbooks. the stuff really wasnt any more difficult than simple mathematics -- but it had been YEARS since i had done most of it. i found that the BEST way for me to prepare for the exam was just actually break out a pen(cil) and paper when i needed to do some. NOT use the calc function on my phone. this simple method just made me THINK about what i was doing and how to do it. i still swear by it and why i got a decent score (for me) on the GRE.
i've never been good at math, so just _looking_ at this made my head hurt, so off to google i went...m l/
after a number of very good sites that also made my head hurt, i found:
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.fractions.ht
which still made my head hurt, but at least i now understood the technique.
"...that's as white as it gets; all the bits are on..."
By Pressing MATH then Fraction, I can convert any decimal to a fraction using my TI-83.
-Its time for some Agent Orange!-
Buy .999999999... does equal 1.
.9999999999...
Proof:
= Sum(9/10^i,i,1,inf)
= 9 * Sum(1/10^i,i,1,inf) (9 is a constant and can therefore be pulled out)
= 9 * (1/10)/(1-1/10) (Geometric series, first term 1/10, common ratio 1/10)
= 9 * (1/10)/(9/10)
= 9 * 1/10 * 1/9 * 10
= 1
Dont profit from hacking.Instead show other People Risks which might happen,when somebody use or missuse new Technology.
You'd be surprised how many people don't know their multiplication tables! I understand CALCULators for CALCULus, but for simple things like this?
-Palal
Someone who wants to multiply or divide it by another fraction, or add it or subtract it from another fraction?
OK, so you may well go through that stage in your head rather than on paper, but you do still how to make that conversion. (Oh, and it's very easy to lose the decimal place if you don't write it down.)
Mathematical HAL
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'