Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

For Education, Why TI-83 > iPad

Posted by timothy on from the depends-how-prussian-you-want-to-get dept.

theodp writes "Writing in The Atlantic, Phil Nichols makes a convincing case for why educational technologies should be more like graphing calculators and less like iPads. Just messing around with TI-BASIC on a TI-83 Plus, Nichols recalls, 'helped me cultivate many of the overt and discrete habits of mind necessary for autonomous, self-directed learning.' So, with all those fancy iPads at their schools, today's kids must really be programming up a storm, right? Wrong. Nichols, who's currently pursuing a PhD in education, laments, 'The iPad is among the recent panaceas being peddled to schools, but like those that came before, its ostensibly subversive shell houses a fairly conventional approach to learning. Where Texas Instruments graphing calculators include a programming framework accessible even to amateurs, writing code for an iPad is restricted to those who purchase an Apple developer account, create programs that align with Apple standards, and submit their finished products for Apple's approval prior to distribution.'"

1 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. They shouldn't be using IPad or TI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give them something that will actually be useful in the real world--a netbook with octave. It's certainly a heck of alot easier to learn then TI Basic for doing anything useful.

    Also you could give the python with numpy if they need a programming language that extends beyond math.

    Hell, even give them mathematica (Although it wouldn't be free like octave or python..)