The Reign of the $100 Graphing Calculator Required By Every US Math Class Is Finally Ending (engadget.com)

If you took a math class at some point in the US, there is likely a bulky $100 calculator gathering dust somewhere in your closet. Fast forward to today, and the Texas Instruments 84 -- or the TI 84-Plus, or the TI-89 or any of the other even more expensive hardware variants -- is quickly losing relevance. Engadget adds: Thanks to a new deal, they'll soon get a free option. Starting this spring, pupils in 14 US states will be able to use the TI-like Desmos online calculator during standardized testing run by the Smarter Balanced consortium. "We think students shouldn't have to buy this old, underpowered device anymore," Desmos CEO Eli Luberoff said. The Desmos calculator will be embedded directly into the assessments, meaning students will have access during tests with no need for an external device. It'll also be available to students in grades 6 through 8 and high school throughout the year. The calculator is free to use, and the company makes money by charging organizations to use it, according to Bloomberg.

Comments

Free? Or Not Free?

[dj245]

The calculator is free to use, and the company makes money by charging organizations to use it, according to Bloomberg.

Sounds like it is not free to me.

TI has coasted for long enough.

[dslauson]

They've had a good run of doing nothing and not updating their hardware or software in any kind of meaningful way for the past couple decades. No other company would have been so neglectful to such a profitable product line.

Re:TI has coasted for long enough.

[green1]

I don't think it's the lack of updating the product that did it in, there's no way they could have realistically competed with the average smartphone. In fact, they haven't been able to compete with the average smart phone for many years now.

What TI apparently failed to do was update their brib^H^H^H^Hlobbying. After all this was a government mandated profit stream, you have to work to maintain those!

It's about time!

[green1]

A couple of decades ago it almost made sense, but now that every student has a more powerful device in their pocket already, it's ridiculous that they've been forced to shell out so much money for such an antiquated device.

Re:It's about time!

[MBGMorden]

I think to some degree though the "antiquated device" is a an anti-cheating tool. A smartphone is so powerful that it's hard to allow them in a classroom without rampant cheating being easily accomplished. I mean heck you could even send pictures of questions to another person and have them doing them and sending answers back.

With a graphing calculator you're limited to at most unapproved programs (or storing equations into the programming mode).

Slide Rule

[MountainLogic]

I'm waiting for a kid to get expelled for bringing in his grandfather's real slide rule because the slide rule is an unauthorized "cheating device" not covered by a school board approved EULA.

Whats wrong with a $10 calculator?

[Murdoch5]

You don't need more than a $10, simple, scientific calculator, it will have all the features you need. Instead of giving kids a tool that prevents them from learning the concepts, why not have them learn the concepts and provide them a simple tool to help them along the way.

When I took calculus, advanced calculus, and vector calculus, we weren't allowed to have a calculator in the classroom or exams, because once you got the equation you needed, in the right form, the answer didn't matter. This is how every child should learn math.

Even in engineering school, I don't remember actually needing my calculator for very much, besides crunching a final answer, which was a very small amount of the overall work.

Obligitory XKCD

[jfdavis668]

https://xkcd.com/768/

Not underpowered

[thegarbz]

What more power could you want for a device that instantly spits out the answer you give it? The TI calculators aren't underpowered in the slightest, they are simply over priced.

As for "bulky" the vast majority of the size is made up of lovely big and easy to use buttons. I don't think any device would be better served with a context menu and a touchscreen or god forbid endless amounts of whitespace with every useful function buried somewhere 4 menus deep without context of where in in the system you currently are.

Re:Sounds like a step backwards

[OhPlz]

Which is why the TI-85 was better than the TI-81. You could fake the reset screen perfectly.

Re:it's not $127

[wonkey_monkey]

a hot air balloon ride.

Is that a euphemism? It's so hard to keep up with the lingo...

Re:Meh.

[Hognoxious]

We had to do graphs by hand - graphing calculators were explicitly banned. Generally they were easy questions. Find the roots & find f(0) - you know where it crosses the axes. Diff=0 for the minima/maxima. Double diff=0 for the inflection points. I forget now how you find the asymptotes. Disembowel a goat, maybe.

Two words

[jgfenix]

Physical keys

20 years from now

[OrangeTide]

Wait long enough and start-ups like Desmos will be gone. But my TI-85 still works and I still have my data from when I was in high school, ... 20 years ago.